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JZer · Joined: 16 Jan 2005 Posts: 3898 Location: Pittsburgh

Since Venzuela and Chavez always seems to be a popular topic I just wanted to tell everyone that if they are interested that they should read Chavez, Venzuela and The New Latin America. I hope that maybe we can have a nice discussion without everyone going balistic. One nice thing about this book is that it is an interview with Chavez and not an interpretation of his views from a Latino or an American.

I will try to write more about the book later this week but I did want to tell everyone that Chavez dropped the public school fees when he came to power. Before poor people could not afford to attend elementary and high school.

If anyone has any other recommended books on Venzuela please let me know.

Soroca · Joined: 22 Jun 2005 Posts: 1 Location: Los Palos Grandes

Here's another book you may want to check out by Eva Golinger:

El C�digo Ch�vez: Descifrando la intervenci�n de los EEUU en Venezuela

The Chavez Code: Deciphering the Intervention of the United States in Venezuela

moonraven · Joined: 24 Mar 2004 Posts: 3094

The Eva Golinger book is particularly important, as she makes her case (Golinger is an attorney) primarily from CIA documents (unfortunately, very heavily censored in the majority) that she requested through the Freedom of Information Act. Specific documents may be viewed at:

www.venezuelafoia.info

moonraven · Joined: 24 Mar 2004 Posts: 3094

This article, posted today on Venezuelanalysis.com by Eva Golinger, is a good introduction to the US role in combatting democracy in Venezuela:

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1500

snielz · Joined: 05 Apr 2005 Posts: 165 Location: Buenos Aires

Thanks for the link. Interesting stuff...Good to read it in English. I just cant understand complex conversations yet in spanish.

If anyone knows some more info of this type, post it if you have a chance.

Chazz · Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2005 2:26 am Post subject: World Socialist Website

Ya, I know it sounds like an iffy place to be getting info...obviously there is a bias there, but it is not quite the glaring propaganda one might expect. But after reading it for a few years, off an on, and meeting one of their correspondants/founders at a protest in Quebec City, I would say that a good 95% or better of it is well researched info/news that has "evaded" the mainstream media in that way which such info tends to. It has a whole section of news, if you scroll down from the main page, about "Worker's Struggles" in the Americas that seems updated often enough...
Thanks for the tip, Moonraven, excellent stuff, that article by Eva Golinger.

moonraven · Joined: 24 Mar 2004 Posts: 3094

Gregory Wilpert, the sociologist?journalist from the US who began the site, did so after living and writing for several years in Caracas. Interestingly, he was NOT a chavista, but became one around the time he and I began communicating in April 2002 (right after the coup).

Bias is tricky--but Venezuelanalysis.com clearly presents much more rational articles than most news sites--especially ones fed by Reuters, where Chavez is always described as a firebrand left-winger (how many times has Bush been described as a brain-dead right-winger, for example?)

Quite frankly, it would be difficult for any person of normal intelligence with some social consciousness who comes in contact with the Bolivarian process NOT to become biased in its favor--especially given the gruesome alternative presented by the US and its allies: "democracy" in the form of a gun barrel.

JZer · Joined: 16 Jan 2005 Posts: 3898 Location: Pittsburgh

Thanks for the link. I am really enjoying China right now but can't wait to come to Latin America in February.

JZer · Joined: 16 Jan 2005 Posts: 3898 Location: Pittsburgh

Moonraven, have you read this interview Chavez, Venzuela and The New Latin America

moonraven · Joined: 24 Mar 2004 Posts: 3094

Haven't yet--was already in the Middle East when it was presented in Cuba. There are not many books here about Latin America. (Although the Jordan Times has had two big stories on Chavez in the past couple of weeks.)

moonraven · Joined: 24 Mar 2004 Posts: 3094

A friend advised me that the Marta Harnecker book of interviews, Hugo Chavez: Un hombre, un pueblo (about 13 hours of interviews conducted in late spring and early summer of 2002, right after the coup and published in Spanish in 2003) is going to be available in September in English as:

Understanding the Venezuelan Revolution: Hugo Chavez Talks to Marta Harnecker.

It may be ordered from amazon.com in paperback for $10.85 (hardcover is $49)