Hugo and Evo go to Copenhagen

Yet Venezuela is one of the world's largest oil exporters and the publicly-owned oil company PDVSA the fifth-largest in the world.

Much of Venezuela's oil comes from oil sands not that different from Alberta's.

The government subsidises gasoline at the pump and it costs two cents a litre.

So I guess my question is, what does Chavez plan on doing about climate change?

Where is that chart of GHG emitters?

Chavez  has been using his oil revenues to reduce the ills of poverty and eliminate literacy. Chavez supports the proposition put forward, I believe by Morales, of being compensated for leaving the oil in the ground. It is an idea no different from Canadian farmers being compensated not to plow under habitat and to restore natural areas. Chavez also believes oil is too important to be wasted in the obese vehicles of obese North Americans. A very different approach from our own politicians who serve only the interests of those 500 richest people and their corporatized system of looting and spreading death.

An Empty Revolution, by Francisco Rodriguez, former Chief Economist of the Venezuelan National Assembly from 2000-2004

Seriously, the price at the pump is $0.02 per litre. People fill up their Hummers for a dollar [7]. PDVSA pumps 2.3 million barrels of the stuff out of the ground every day, making Venezuela the fifth-largest producer in the world.  Chavez has a strange way of showing support for Morales' proposition.

All those uber-rich stuffed shirts are in a lather over the oil and Venezuela's poor receiving a break for the first time in their poverty-stricken lives. Political Conservatives don't understand that human capital is needed to create the prosperity they can only lie about creating. The way they want things is to have 50 or 60 percent of the population illiterate and impoverished. It makes rigging elections that much easier. 

 Some absolute howlers from the reactionary propaganda posted by AJ

"Although this decline may appear impressive, it is also known that poverty reduction is strongly associated with economic growth"

and even better

"The story of Chávez as a social revolutionary finally redressing the injustices created by centuries of oppression fits nicely into traditional stereotypes of the region, reinforcing the view that Latin American underdevelopment is due to the vices of its predatory governing classes. Once one adopts this view, it is easy to forget about fashioning policy initiatives that could actually help Latin America grow, such as ending the agricultural subsidies that depress the prices of the region’s exports or significantly increasing the economic aid given to countries undertaking serious efforts to combat poverty.

The American journalist Sydney Harris once wrote that “we believe what we want to believe, what we like to believe, what suits our prejudices and fuels our passions.” The idea that Latin American governments are controlled by economic elites may have been true in the nineteenth century, but is wildly at odds with reality in a world in which every Latin American country except Cuba has regular elections with large levels of popular participation. Much like governments everywhere, Latin American governments try to balance the desire for wealth redistribution with the need to generate incentives for economic growth, the realities of limited effective state power, and the uncertainties regarding the effectiveness of specific policy initiatives. Ignoring these truths is not only anachronistic and misguided; it also thwarts the design of sensible foreign policies aimed at helping the region’s leaders formulate and implement strategies for achieving sustainable and equitable development."

There are elections in Cuba all the time, and voter turnouts are higher than for Bananada and far higher than the USSA. The only rule is that Yanqui gringos can't buy elections like they've done in other Latin American countries and poverty-stricken Caribbean island nations ruled by US-backed despots. Can we imagine the Russians or Chinese, or, gasp, CUBA funding a political faction opposed to the bipartisan warfiteering party bought and paid-for by Wall Street? There'd be hell to pay.

Or if some dictator tried to abolish term limits in Canada?

I believe Venezuelans voted in favour of extending the term limit to three because Chavez is so popular with voters.

In Canada's case, we should ban any political party from running in the next election in the event that they are charged with influence peddling or anything of a rip-off the public nature while in government. We've had two very similar political parties in power or sharing power in Ottawa for about twice as long as the Soviets ruled the USSR. We've had provincial conservative governments rivalling Fidel Castro's length of rule in Cuba. Dollar democracies only make mock of the real thing.

I can't support eliminating literacy.

Venezuela's per capita carbon emissions are a third of Canada's, and declining.

Give those gasoline subsidies time to work!  You can't expect them to catch up overnight.

Please feel free to post the figures and data that prove that the author, former Chavez-supporter Francisco Rodriguez, is wrong.

Christopher Hitchen's is a former Trotskyist. What's your point? What is clear from the quotes I posted is the Ideological assumptions that Rodriquez is operating under and through which these "figures and data" are generated and filtered. It is clearly a global neo-liberal perspective that argues there are no alternatives to the status quo. This is relevant to the actual thread in that Evo and Hugo are proposing alternatives to Global Neo-liberalism.

Alternatve  views

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4514

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4182 [18]

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4458 [19]

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4470 [20]

Speaking of propaganda . . .

I know you are but what am I?

The hawks and their Venezuelan elitist friends are all upset that Venezuela has a real leader calling the shots. Too bad so sad!

And let that Venezuelan oil continue flowing in tankers to Montreal and westward by pipeline to Sarnia for processing, and NOT let the bastards in the Tar Patch reverse the flow to satisfy U.S. refineries with bitumen from Fort McMordor.

So let's see, we have one apologist for corporate socialism quoting a disgruntled economist. Quoting an economist is bad enough (why not a sorceror?), but a disgruntled one. Yet the argument seems to be that, yes, Chavez has eased poverty and brought about substantial changes but they can't be real substantial changes because they don't adhere to the soul sucking deprivations of neo-liberalism. And then we have our other resident asshat whose greatest contribution to any thread so far is pointing out a typo. Yes, Snert, you are quite the editor. Too bad you lack anything intelligent to contribute.

But, of course, the real issue in this thread is that the only true leadership on human rights, the economy, and climate, comes from the South while our own leaders, of the so-called rich nations, rich not due to the failures of neo-liberalism but due the success of pillaging, looting, and out right banditry, are bankrupt of leadership.

I notice our apologists for neo-liberal dehumanism and crimes are silent on Evo Morales. I guess even they can recognize, however grudingingly, true strength of character. Something so lacking in the plastic and empty world of neo-liberalism they would champion. After all, what is the essence of neo-liberalism other than a anti-life narcissicm?

 Interview with Morales: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJStS5uIRiA

Continue? As far as I am aware the refining of all of venezuelan crude is done in the US or by US companies in Canada. Are you saying a Canadian company is now doing it?

One of the interesting things about the disgruntled neo-liberal psychic is that he acknowledges the significant reduction in poverty in Venezuela but then claims this is only an artifact of economic growth. Hence the amusing quote about poverty reduction being related to economic growth, which of course is horseshit as has been demonstrated in the last thirty years of neo-liberalism. In the west unprecedented economic growth has been coupled with growing inequality, for the majority wages have stagnated, debt ballooned and for the poorest their situation has become progressively worse.

The posted propaganda only increases in hilarity when it argues that Latin American Oligarchy is a distant feature of the 19th century, ignoring the reality of the right-wing military dictatorship that were a prominent part of Latin American reality in the 20th century. To dismiss this reality is deeply insulting to all those who were victims of these brutal regimes. It also ignores the historic reality of the relationship between the global south and the Corporate west. Global corporate interests have always backed the local elite in repression of the populace in exchange for access to resources and labour. This is only outsourced colonialism which the neo-liberal economists laughably refer to trade and foreign investment.

The claim of social equality and liberty is backed by the assertion of free democratic elections again ignoring the reality of significant choice between parties that are diferent forms of representation of the economic elite. This is considered democratic only because it mirrors the pseudo democracy that exists in the west. This is why Chavez and Morales are such a threat not only to local elite but to the international elite, because they are actually offering an alternative vision of an empowered, educated and active majority that was previously marginalized and brutalized. This is also what the likes of Aj and snert ignore. It is not about Chavez or Morales as much as it is about the desires and aspirations of the majority of people in Latin America who have faces the worst consequences of global neo-liberalsim and are now actively seeking and creating alternatives. This in Venezuela is the Bolivarian process one that is aimed at increasing democracy, power and participation at a local level so that it may never again be taken away from them. This of course is revolutionary and a profound threat to the interests of the elite. It is also a process that potentially take a very long time and is always vulnerable to the ongoing attacks of the local and international elite.

The reactionaries and their supporters in the west feel threatened by alternatives to neo-libearlism because it threatens their fragile sense of self that is built around the belief that they are special and exceptional due to their ability to consume and collect enormous un necessary stacks of shiny crap to keep in oversized dwellings in sprawling alientated developments built on prime agricultural land and natural habitats. Don't point out to them that their endless struggle to consume and collect more crap is meaningless though it makes them snippy.

And all of it viciously stolen from the land to the resources to the energy.

Yes, old boy. That pipeline running across southern Ontario farmland just south of here, feeds a Sarnia refinery.  It's been there for more than four decades. Helps explain Sarnia's effect on the folks drinking water downstream.  We just hope the damned pipe does not burst near the Grand River (under which it runs), or any other bloody creek, for that matter.

Where do you hail from? Are you saying the oil in that pipe cannot be from Venezuela? Do you know where it is brought in from?

(And I'm sorry to distort this thread, FM.  Your points are well taken. The Mennonite husband of a niece of mine farms large acreage in Bolivia and is part of the problem there.  Viva Morales!)

Can someone explain this thread to me? If Canada nationalizes the tar sands - will they suddenly be okay?

Venezuala is becoming too dependant on fossil fuels - just as Canada as. They are sharing their wealth better, but they shouldn't be depending on dirty energy to do it.

Progress through understanding, Ghislaine. Tiny steps for Homo sapiens to get the species' shit together. And first, understanding.

No. But we're a rich developed country. We could halt all tar sands development tomorrow and still be a rich developed country - though I expect some screams to the contrary.

Applying the same standard to Canada as to Venezuela (and China) is the approach that the U.S. and Stephen Harper and some (thankfully few) others take as an excuse to continue destroying the planet. In fact, Venezuela and China will take (and already are taking in some cases) concrete measures long before Stephen Harper ever will.

We have more, we must do more.

Do what Unionist says.  I've overeaten.  Back tomorrow.

The Pie.

Good lord old boy. I did not say it could not be from venezuela, just that I was unaware that it may be. And is the refinery a canadian owned refinery or is it owned by a US company?

An Interview With Eva Golinger The first and foremost important achievement during the Chávez administration is the 1999 Constitution, which, although not written nor decreed by Chávez himself, was created through his vision of change for Venezuela. The 1999 Constitution was, in fact, drafted - written - by the people of Venezuela in one of the most participatory examples of nation building, and then was ratified through popular national referendum by 75 per cent of Venezuelans. The 1999 Constitution is one of the most advanced in the world in the area of human rights. It guarantees the rights to housing, education, healthcare, food, indigenous lands, languages, women's rights, worker's rights, living wages and a whole host of other rights that few other countries recognize on a national level.

Sarnia's refineries are all  U.S. owned, as far as I know. But that was not the point. I believe that at least some of the oil feeding those Sarnia refineries comes from Venezuela, but wherever the oil comes from, it has to be "better" than bitumen.

 The plans to reverse the flow in that pipeline -and feed Tar Patch product to the Gulf U.S. refineries by installing a new pipeline north and east from Montreal,  were put on hold with the collapse of the oil and finance capital bubbles. Refineries are too expensive to build and their fate too uncertain now in a newly carbon-conscious world.

Much like there are elections in Iran all the time, but the same situation obtains - only candidates generally in support of the system as is are allowed.

Trying to transition from an oil-dependent economy to something different is a tough job and Hugo Chavez deserves credit for whatever he does in that regard. Even the simple acknowledgement that it has to change is farther than say, Alberta's gotten.

Yes, unlike the West where we elect this party of the establishment or that party of the establishment. You'd think they'd learn from us!

I'm not saying that such people are likely to win here either - but at least they can run and organize.

You can run and organize any where. Who cares? I've been observing the world for far too long to believe that our pretend democracy is better than their pretend democracy.  I still hear about how awful all these different leaders were. Stalin starved, you know, in the area of 10 million Ukrainians. That is the terrible, terrible crime of totalitarian communism. Yet totalitarian capitalism will kill that number every single year from hunger and somehow that never deserves the same level of scrutiny nor condemnation. I just find the whole "but we're better" argument tiring. If you want to know how much better we are wait for the shortages to happen. I'm sure our paramilitaries will be much more democratic.

But Jesus, FM, do you think there are sectors of Canadian society ready to go paramilitary?  There are indications of that in the U.S. hills, but aren't you "jumping the gun" a bit north of the 49th?

We are economically and culturally tied to the US. Our economy like theirs is founded on cheap energy, cheap transportation, and cheap minerals mined far afield and with complete disregard for the people and cultures from whom they are taken. Our culture, like theirs, is one of privilege and entitllement. Canadians didn't question their need for SUVs and daily trips to the big box just because Shock and Awe was turning Iraqi men, women, and children into pulp. We are not immune from the converging realities of scarcities and global ecological collapse. The chickens are on their way home to roost, George. You and I, were likely too old to see or suffer through much of it. But our young friends and younger family members are not.

Now I understand your concern for gun registration.  :D

But seriously, why do you think I keep trying to put forward SOLUTIONS, something beyond the Jeremiad chorus hereabouts?

Edited to add: 

Have to admit, FM, that back in the days of bomb shelters, having the trappings of a hunter was somewhat reassuring...not sure if you go back to the "discussions" about "what would you do if someone tried to break in and take your water and food?" It was good to leave that behind, along with my hunting weaponry...but lately I've been looking fondly at a 12 guage over and under. A Mossberg, nice engraving. Just for skeet, of course.

In just a few years, we'll be importing fossil fuels for domestic use west of Quebec for the first time. And at which point we should probably look at growing hothouse bananas and coffee, sugar cane etc. If Canadians thought the privilege of living next door to most imperialist country in the world was expensive before, just wait until we start running out of cheap oil and natural gas that we've been paying corporate America to take off our hands. We've become renters in our own country, and the next generation will be even poorer for the corruption ongoing in this country for many years.