Cocaine’s Flow Is Unchecked in Venezuela

[Peace Patriot]

6. Yeah, and if the Chavez government banned guns, you would be the first to cry, "Dictator!"

Venezuela's violence is PRIVATE and is related to Venezuelans' love of guns. It is NOT the government, stoked by billions of dollars in U.S. military aid, U.S. military "training" and the on-the-ground presence of U.S. military personnel and U.S. police state agents, CREATING "drug wars," as in Mexico, and using the "war on drugs" to murder trade unionists, teachers, community activists and other advocates of the poor, and to brutally displace FIVE MILLION peasant farmers, as in Colombia, and using the "war on drugs" to murder trade unionists, peaceful advocates of the poor, Indigenous tribespeople, journalists and others, as in Honduras.

Big difference. Private violence is harder to stop for the very reason that people have rights--not only the right to bear arms but also the right to a trial, evidence, habeas corpus, proof, if they are accused, and the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty. STATE violence, on the other hand--of the U.S. "war on drugs" kind--is EASY to stop if the government is devoted to good government policy and is not ruled by war profiteers. Unfortunately, we don't have such a government and have no power whatsoever over these billions and billions of our tax dollars wasted on the "war on drugs," poured into the pockets of war and police state and "prison-industrial complex" profiteers and the villainous extension of this "war" into Latin American countries with rightwing/fascist governments.

The Chavez government has, in fact, been far more effective at busting big drug lords since they threw the DEA out of the country. True also of Bolivia. Many big drug busts--minimal violence--and no collateral damage on society, as in the blood-soaked countries of Colombia, Honduras and Mexico, and in our bankrupt land with our out-of-control police state.

The U.S. "war on drugs" is INSANE. It is far worse than "Prohibition" in the 1920s, and its export by U.S. war profiteers to Latin America is the worst thing that has ever happened to Latin America. It is a war on the poor. To equate that DELIBERATE bloodbath by GOVERNMENTS--our own and its rightwing allies--with the street violence in Venezuela, which the government does not desire to happen and is trying to prevent, is twisted, "Alice in Wonderland" thinking--upside down, inside out and backwards--typical of the far right.

The Chavez government could end most street violence in Venezuela by banning guns--but they won't because Venezuelans have a right to bear arms. They could end it with "big boot" police state tactics--but they won't because they are a democracy. They have to go, and desire to go, the slow way of democracy--building up a professional police force, reforming the courts, promoting education and higher achievement and all the society-building work that has been crushed in Latin America for a hundred years, while the U.S. toppled one good government after another, in its service to U.S. transglobal corporations.

I am anti-guns. I want all guns and all weapons wiped off the face of the earth. And, if I were king of Venezuela, that would be my first edict. But Venezuela doesn't have a king nor any kind of tyrant. The solution has to be by consent of the people. On the other hand, the corrupt, murderous, failed U.S. "war on drugs" is something that governments CAN affect RIGHT NOW. They can stop all this arms dealing, violence and collateral damage right now!

Even some rightwing leaders in LatAm have called for the legalization of drugs, so bad has the U.S. "war on drugs" become. While they may be shilling for a Big Pharma/Big Ag plan to monopolize the drug trade through legalization (now that the peasants have been cleared off the land and Monsanto can take over), the fact that they are even able to say this--call for legalization--indicates more sanity in LatAm leaders than we ever see here. It also indicates WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS VIOLENCE--government leaders!

That is not true in Venezuela!

As for your point about the FARC, that is ludicrously far right and has been debunked time and again. The Bushwhacks' "made man" in Colombia--the foaming at the mouth winger and warmonger, Alvaro Uribe--tried to score points with his mob bosses with that one, and got laughed at all over the continent. "...some of us have been reporting on the ... FARC Venezuela connection for years" and "some of you" have been wrong for years, on this and everything else. Repeating rightwing "talking points" doesn't make them real; it only makes them more of a "Big Lie" than ever.

And, believe me, the New York Slimes is not above promoting "Big Lies." They did it on Iraq. They've done it frequently on the Latin American left. They do it often on critically important matters. They have cobbled together a bunch of lies and bullshit, in this case, to influence the election in Venezuela and to throw more hate at Chavez possibly in collusion with the Pentagon (as with Iraq) for the next oil war. I don't call them the "Slimes" for nothing. They are war propagandists.