Here's a useful catalogue, via Red Constantino:
"For many, the nature of the change that Chavez is driving has become the central reason behind the sustained attempts to undermine the Chavez government. The disparity of agendas is glaring. The opposition continues to promise, for instance, a return to free market economic policies, a platform welcomed by international financial leaders and institutions like the International Monetary Fund; Chavez is opposed to it.
"'We are building an economy at the service of human beings,' said Nora Castaneda, the president of Banca Mujer (Women's Development Bank), of the Chavez administration's goals, 'not human beings at the service of the economy.'
"For the first time in Venezuela's history, government authority has been established decisively over how the Venezuelan oil industry - the fifth largest exporter in the world - is to be run and for whose benefit. Oil money is now re-channeled towards financing immeasurable employment, health, education and literacy missions throughout the country for the destitute of Venezuela, specifically for women.
"At least 65 percent of Venezuelan households are headed by women and the Chavez government during the drafting of the 2000 constitution ensured that this fact was reflected in Venezuela's framing document. Among it's progressive provisions, the constitution recognizes women's unwaged caring work as economically productive, entitling housewives to social security.
"It was no surprise, Selma James noted, that in 2002 women of African and indigenous descent led the masses who descended from the hills to reverse the elite-sponsored and U.S.-backed putsch which briefly ousted Chavez, 'thereby saving their constitution, their president, their democracy, their revolution.'
"Over 250,000 children now have access to secondary education--children 'whose social status excluded them from this privilege during the ancien regime.' In poor districts, 11,000 neighborhood clinics have been established, the health budget has tripled and 10,000 Cuban doctors have been fielded to boost health care services in impoverished areas. There is also an ongoing campaign to provide citizenship to thousands of long-term immigrants....
"And yet, despite his belligerent attitude towards the Bush administration, despite his glaring differences with the U.S. government concerning Latin American hemispheric economic integration, despite his government's openly expressed dissenting position on geopolitical issues such as the war on Iraq, the U.S. government continues to do business with the Chavez government and import 14 percent of its oil - equivalent to 1.5 million barrels per day, which was the average even before the election of Chavez - from Venezuela....
"'Are we aiming in Venezuela today for the abolition of private property or a classless society?' Chavez continued. 'I don't think so. But if I'm told that because of that reality you can't do anything to help the poor . . . then I say "We part company". I will never accept that there can be no redistribution of wealth in society. Our upper classes don't even like paying taxes. That's one reason why they hate me. We said "You must pay your taxes". I believe it's better to die in battle, rather than hold aloft a very revolutionary and very pure banner, and do nothing . . . That position often strikes me as very convenient, a good excuse . . . Try and make your revolution, go into combat, advance a little, even if it's only a millimeter, in the right direction, instead of dreaming about utopias.'"
No wonder the U.S. Government hates him, and no wonder two-thirds of the people support him.
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