Arriving hot on the heels of crackpot proclamations from noted Bush Administration mouthpiece Pat Robertson urging the administration to murder Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, this book serves as a timely reminder that some world leaders aren’t totally and completely insane – a fact easily forgotten in Bush’s America.

The Bush Administration has backpedaled in an attempt to distance themselves from Robertson’s lunatic assassination idea, but don’t believe their fumbling efforts. As recently as August 19th, Pennsylvania Republican Senator Arlen Specter called on Bush Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to tone down his rantings on the issue of Chávez. And the administration hasn’t been very thankful for Chávez’ offer of aid in the wake of Katrina - Bush, the man Chávez described as the “king of vacations,” hasn’t leapt to embrace Venezuelan aid to New Orleans.

Chávez: Venezuela & the New Latin America serves as both a solid introduction to President Chávez’ views on Venezuela and Latin America and his sense of the place of truly independent states in the new US global hegemony. The story of his military career and movement into the politics of equality makes for interesting reading, but it is the story of his work since his 1998 election that really makes an impact. Since the Fifth Republic Movement’s victory at the polls in November ’98, the Chávez government has undertaken an agenda for action that only seems radical in Bush’s America – using the military to aid civilian reconstruction efforts with the Plan Bolivar, setting up national firms (like a People’s Bank) to compete with private sector suppliers a lá the TVA, and steep increases in education funding to prepare Venezuelans for the future.

Chávez makes clear that while the fact that a popularly elected government can succeed with policies that aid the needy and emerging middle classes shouldn’t come as a shock, it still drives the Bush administration to distraction. One wonders which drives the Bush guys crazier; the fact that, unlike Bush, Chávez has actually been legitimately elected (56% in 1998, 59% in 2000, and defeating a referendum that would have removed him from power which Chávez won with approximately 58%, a vote certified by the Carter Center) or the fact that the Chávez government applies oil revenues from the world’s 8th largest petroleum industry to supply social services to impoverished citizens. Either way, our current junta took time out of their busy schedules of invading Iraq to support an abortive coup in 2002, a move predictably supported by a supine US media.

But don’t let Bush Administration animosity alone convince you that Chávez’ Venezuela deserves your support. Chávez: Venezuela & the New Latin America is a useful introduction to Chávez’ views on the emerging anti-globalization effort. Citing World Social Forum organizer Ignacio Romanet, Chávez discusses various stages in the growth of anti-globalization efforts – a birth and growth stage of awareness of the neo-liberal economic model, the rise of a movement protesting that model, and the birth of a third stage, a stage of alternative models. Chávez proudly proclaims Venezuela to be at the vanguard of this stage and the innovative and egalitarian proposals laid out here buttress that claim. Read Chávez: Venezuela & the New Latin America before your tax dollars are used to move this book from the current events section of your bookstore to the one labeled “history.”

Chávez: Venezuela & the New Latin America
Hugo Chávez, interviewed by Aleida Guevara
Ocean Books, 2005
www.oceanbooks.com.au

-Keith McCrea
Reviews Editor

p.s. Support Chávez by buying your gas at Citgo - a subsidiary of Venezuela’s state oil company. Find a station here.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 2nd, 2005 at 9:48 am by Keith. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.