CHAVEZ AND 500 YEARS OF GOLD MINING

CESAR CHAVEZ has been elected, overthrown by bush-whack, re-elected, triumphed over a bush-roving slander and recall effort, and he is the democratically elected President of Venezuela. Our Resident-select cannot hold a candle to these achievements.

The European Conquistadors, first Spanish, then mostly British, now mostly US American, have been taking gold and other resources out of the countries south of here for five hundred (500) years. We, that is, the western "democracies" of European heritage, have enslaved and exploited the Americas down south for half a millennium by military, economic force, and political subjugation because we have selected the rulers. We have not respected sovereignty or human rights or political autonomy at all.

We set up dictatorships, always with severe military backing, and then put in place our own trade tactics designed to suck the human and material goods out of the countries. We abetted plutocracy, leaving poverty and injustice, environmental rape, and iron rule for the ninety-eight percent.

Our free trade treaties are one-way sales of value-added finished goods and agricultural staples and technology. We buy only the depleteable resources that are literally dirt cheap, and through terms of the treaties, sell them back in expensive forms. Monsanto, United Fruit, GM, and a thousand more are gold mining after 500 years.

We do not invest in real in-country finished production that could make these beautiful republics real self sustaining democracies. Rather,we staple their noses with their own gold rings.

Cesar Chavez looks like a leader who is independent and trying to regain hemispheric dignity after 500 years. There is a point where someone will stand up to the bullies.

Although we the bullies don't like it, in the long run Chavez's leadership is good for Latin America and good for our own future.

We have a choice: to support dictators and war, or play like adult equal partners in prosperity.

It is good that Chavez is not a lapdog: they sometimes turn and bite.

-30-bobby