 A public event on the occasion of the 30th Anniversary of the bombing of Cubana airliner, flight 455, which cost the lives of 73 passengers, was held on October 6th, 2006, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in Boston. Participating in this event were political activist and analyst Noam Chomsky, Cuban specialist and French scholar Salim Lamrani and the President of the National Lawyer’s Guild, Michael Avery, for a discussion of US foreign policy towards Cuba and Latin America, and the cases of Luis Posada Carriles and the Cuban Five. The following is Noam Chomsky’s response to a question from the audience: Audience Member: With the recent integration and cooperation between Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia, obviously the US is paying more attention to these countries. What in your opinion could be the agenda of secret agents currently in action in Venezuela? and could you please analyze the possibility of military intervention in Venezuela and Bolivia on the part of the US government. |
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 Post-Castro Cuba Reporters and friends keep asking: "so what'll happen when Castro dies?" "A big funeral in Havana," I reply with certainty. One other sure thing: anti-Castro exiles in south Florida will throw a mammoth party. On July 31, Fidel revealed he would have surgery and ceded temporarily responsibilities to his brother Raul. Little Havana's streets erupted in celebration. Politically, Fidel again showed he has ability to induce obsession in his enemies, thus making it difficult for them to think clearly--apart from questions of bad taste. Fidel's stature will continue to cloud south Florida's political reality. |
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Five centuries after the European conquests, Latin America is reasserting its independence. In the southern cone especially, from Venezuela to Argentina, the region is rising to overthrow the legacy of external domination of the past centuries and the cruel and destructive social forms that they have helped to establish.
The mechanisms of imperial control - violence and economic warfare, hardly a distant memory in Latin America - are losing their effectiveness, a sign of the shift toward independence. Washington is now compelled to tolerate governments that in the past would have drawn intervention or reprisal.
Throughout the region a vibrant array of popular movements provide the basis for a meaningful democracy. The indigenous populations, as if in a rediscovery of their pre-Columbian legacy, are much more active and influential, particularly in Bolivia and Ecuador. |
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Hugo Chavez chooses his authors, political and social thinkers well, and there's no one better than Noam Chomsky. In his dramatic and courageous speech yesterday to the 61st UN General Assembly, Chavez held up a copy of Chomsky's 2003 book Hegemony or Survival (which I've read and quoted from before). In the book, Chomsky cites the work of Ernst Mayr whom he describes as "one of the great figures of contemporary biology." Mayr noted that beetles and bacteria have been far more successful surviving than the human species is likely to be. He also observed that "the average life expectancy of a species is about 100,000 years" which is about how long ours has been around, and he went on to wonder if we might use our "alloted time" to destroy ourselves and much more with us. Chomsky then noted we certainly have the means to do it, and should it happen, which he says is very possible, we likely will become the only species ever to have made itself extinct.
Hugo Chavez also could have explained what Chomsky had to say about this possibility in his most recent book, Failed States, in which he addresses the three issues he feels are most important - "the threat of nuclear war, environmental disaster, and the fact that the government of the world's only superpower is acting in ways that increase the likelihood of (causing) these catastrophes." Chomsky goes even further raising a fourth issue that the "American system" is in danger of losing its "historic values (of) equality, liberty and meaningful democracy (because of the course it's on)."
Reflecting the thinking and spirit of Noam Chomsky, Hugo Chavez delivered an impassioned speech yesterday to the assembled delegates who came to hear him. It's one likely to be favorably remembered many years from now. At its end, the delegates showed their appreciation and support by giving him a standing ovation (the longest one of all the leaders addressing the Assembly) in contrast to the cool and polite reception given George Bush the previous day who chose not to attend to hear the Venezuelan leader. Too bad he didn't as he might have learned from it if he stayed alert and paid attention. Citing the language in Chomsky's book in his hand, Chavez said: "The hegemonistic pretentions of the American empire are placing at risk the very existence of the human species (and) We appeal to the people of the United States and the world to halt this threat, which is like a sword hanging over our head." He went on to explain that earlier the President of the US attended an Organization of American States meeting and proposed a NAFTA-type trade agreement in both regions that is the "fundamental cause of the great evils and the great tragedies currently suffered by our people. Neoliberal capitalism, the Washington Consensus....has generated....a high degree of misery, inequality and infinite tragedy for all the peoples on (this) continent."
Hugo Chavez called George Bush "the devil" several times and said he came here yesterday and "from this rostrum (talked) as if he owned the world." He denounced the President's talk, said he's responsible for all conflict in the Middle East, and that those opposed to these policies are resisting his imperial model of domination. Chavez predicted the US empire will fall, said "What we need now more than ever....is a new international order," and that he wants to see a reinvented UN be part of what can help achieve it. He said the UN under its current rules "does not work" and must be changed to bring more democracy to the organization. He called for the "foundation of a new United Nations" and proposed four fundamental changes including the "need to....suppress....the veto in the decisions taken by the Security Council (because) that elitist trace is incompatible with democracy, incompatible with the principles of equality and democracy." He also called for expanding the Security Council to include developing nations as permanent members and wants to strengthen the role of the Secretary General. He stressed that today the UN body is "worthless" and needs to be "refounded."
Hugo Chavez is dedicated to the principles and spirit of the Bolivarian Revolution he gave the people of Venezuela and wants to spread it to the developing world as a counter-force to the US model of global dominance of the developed North over the less-developed South with the US as hegemon-in-chief. He called on leaders from the developing world to unite and resist to build a new world model based on social equity and justice. Judging by the reception Chavez got yesterday, it looks like he made some progress toward that goal, especially in Latin America that's become an incubator of resistance against the unipolar world the US is beginning to lose its grip on and in support of the multi-polar one Hugo Chavez wants to help create. Stephen Lendman ~ STWR Member Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
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Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. |
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 After agreeing to supply discounted oil to the richest city in Europe - London - to help its low income residents use the city's buses at a reduced cost after earlier providing discounted heating oil for the poor in several northeastern US cities including its richest one - New York, Hugo Chavez is at it again. This time he offered to aid the US oil and cash-rich state of Alaska by providing an even greater benefit - free or subsidized heating oil. In the richest, most powerful country in the world, federal, state and local governments continue to provide fewer essential services to their citizens most in need like helping them stay warm in winter when they can't afford to do it on their own. The result is many of them don't and some die as a result.
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21st September 2006 - Hugo Chavez
Representatives of the governments of the world, good morning to all of you. First of all, I would like to invite you, very respectfully, to those who have not read this book, to read it. Noam Chomsky, one of the most prestigious American and world intellectuals, Noam Chomsky, and this is one of his most recent books, 'Hegemony or Survival: The Imperialist Strategy of the United States.'" [Holds up book, waves it in front of General Assembly.] "It's an excellent book to help us understand what has been happening in the world throughout the 20th century, and what's happening now, and the greatest threat looming over our planet. |
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You’d think George Bush would get down on his knees and kiss Hugo Chávez’s behind. Not only has Chávez delivered cheap oil to the Bronx and other poor communities in the United States. And not only did he offer to bring aid to the victims of Katrina. In my interview with the president of Venezuela on March 28, he made Bush the following astonishing offer: Chávez would drop the price of oil to $50 a barrel, “not too high, a fair price,” he said—a third less than the $75 a barrel for oil recently posted on the spot market. That would bring down the price at the pump by about a buck, from $3 to $2 a gallon. But our President has basically told Chávez to take his cheaper oil and stick it up his pipeline. Before I explain why Bush has done so, let me explain why Chávez has the power to pull it off—and the method in the seeming madness of his “take-my-oil-please!” deal. Venezuela, Chávez told me, has more oil than Saudi Arabia. A nutty boast? Not by a long shot. In fact, his surprising claim comes from a most surprising source: the U.S. Department of Energy. In an internal report, the DOE estimates that Venezuela has five times the Saudis’ reserves. |
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