Noam Chomsky, Year 501: The Conquest Continues book quotes that debunk this David Frum vid. "Mexico and Venezuela are also to provide oil, with US corporations granted the right to take part in production, reversing efforts at domestic control of natural resources....The truth of the matter was well articulated by a US banker in Venezuela under the murderous Pérez Jiménez dictatorship: "You have the freedom here to do what you want to do with your money, and to me, that is worth all the political freedom in the world." Portfolio investment (bonds and securities) [in the 1920s] more than quadrupled to over $1.7 billion. Venezuelan oil under the Gómez dictatorship,...Perhaps it would be better to try Venezuela, even more favorable terrain with its extraordinary resources, including the richest petroleum reserves outside the Middle East. We might, then, have a look at that success story.
In a major scholarly study of US-Venezuelan relations, Stephen Rabe writes that after World War II, the US "actively supported the vicious and venal regime of Juan Vicente Gómez," who opened the country wide to foreign exploitation. ...The State Department shelved the "Open Door" policy in the usual way, recognizing the possibility of "U.S. economic hegemony in Venezuela," hence pressuring its government to bar British concessions...
By 1928, Venezuela had become the world's leading oil exporter, with US companies in charge. During World War II, the US agreed to a Venezuelan demand for 50-50 profit-sharing. The effect, as predicted, was a vast expansion of oil production and "substantial
profits for the [US] oil industry," which took control over the country's economy and "major economic decisions" in all areas. During the 1949-1958 dictatorship of the murderous thug Pérez Jiménez, "U.S. relations with Venezuela were harmonious and economically beneficial to U.S. businessmen"; torture, terror, and general repression passed without notice on the usual Cold War pretexts. In 1954, the dictator was awarded the Legion of Merit by President Eisenhower. The citation noted that "his wholesome policy in economic and financial matters has facilitated the expansion of foreign investment, his
Administration thus contributing to the greater well-being of the country and the rapid development of its immense natural resources" -- and, incidentally, huge profits for the US corporations that ran the country, including by then steel companies and others. About half of Standard Oil of New Jersey's profits came from its Venezuelan subsidiary, to cite just one example.
From World War II, in Venezuela the US followed the standard policy of taking total control of the military "to expand U.S. political and military influence in the Western Hemisphere and perhaps help keep the U.S. arms industry vigorous" (Rabe).... The Kennedy
Administration increased its assistance to the Venezuelan security forces for "internal security and counterinsurgency operations against the political left," Rabe comments,...As in the Middle East, Venezuela nationalized its oil (and iron ore) in a manner quite satisfactory to Washington and US investors, who "found a newly rich Venezuela hospitable," Rabe writes, "one of the most unique markets in the world," in the words of a Commerce Department official. 15
The return to office of social democrat Carlos Andrés Pérez in 1988 aroused some concerns, but they dissipated as he launched an IMF-approved structural readjustment program, resolutely maintained despite thousands of protests, many violent, including one in February 1989 in which 300 people were killed by security forces in the capital city of Caracas."
Though rarely reported in the US, protests continued along with strike waves severe enough to lead to fear that the country was headed towards "anarchy." Among other cases, three students were killed by police who attacked peaceful demonstrations in late November 1991; and two weeks later, police used tear gas to break up a peaceful march of 15,000 people in Caracas protesting Pérez's economic policies.
In January 1992, the main trade union confederation predicted serious difficulties and conflicts as a result of the neoliberal programs, which had caused "massive impoverishment" including a 60 percent drop in workers' buying power in 3 years, while enriching financial groups and transnational corporations.
By then, another "economic miracle" was in place: "a treasury brimming with foreign reserves, inflation at its lowest rate in five years, and an economy growing at the fastest rate in the Americas, 9.2 percent in 1991," Times correspondent James Brooke reported, noting also some familiar flaws, among them a fall in the real minimum wage in Caracas to 44 percent of the 1987 level, a decline in nutritional levels, and a "scandalous concentration of wealth," according to a right-wing Congressman he quotes. Other flaws were to come to light (in the US) a few weeks later after a coup attempt, among them, the government's
admission that only 57 percent of Venezuelans could afford more than one meal a day in this country of enormous wealth. Other flaws in the miracle had been revealed in the report of an August 1991
Presidential Commission for the Rights of Children, not previously noticed, which found that "critical poverty, defined as the inability to meet at least one half of basic nutritional requirements," had tripled from 11 percent of the population in 1984 to 33 percent in 1991; and that real per capita income fell 55 percent from 1988 to 1991, falling at double the rate of 1980-1988...
the high price of oil in 1991 fueled Venezuela's growth more than Pérez's austerity moves," Stan Yarbro reported, and none can fail to see that "the new wealth has failed to trickle down to Venezuela's middle and lower classes, whose standard of living has fallen dramatically."
Infant deaths "have soared in the past two years as a result of worsening malnutrition and other health problems in the shantytowns," a priest who had worked in poor neighborhoods for 16 years said. There is ample "new wealth," much of it "poured into financial speculation schemes rather than new investments in industry. In 1991 money made in real estate and financial services almost equaled the profits from manufactures.
their point is the "surplus" is not accounted for. A good book on this is "Bananas, Beaches and Bases" by Professor Cynthia Enloe. So there is a difference between price and value. The ecological value is literally undermined - but monocultural export crop agribusiness is another type of mining: replacing land fertility with synthetic fertilizer, synthetic chemicals as herbicides/pesticides and increase in desertification, water depletion, water/air pollution, etc. All of those are "externalities" not subtracted from the "surplus" - not to mention the loss of education from workers not able to go to school, the inability of workers to support and feed their families. The wage-slave prison conditions of the workers in "free trade zones."
Noam Chomsky's book "Year 501: The Conquest Continues" is an excellent expose on the scam of Western development. We don't have to learn these things because as Noam Chomsky points out self-censorship is the most common form of censorship. Why should we care that our chocolate is grown by child-slaves because Cargill is owned by 14 billionaires who want to stay rich? Meanwhile the courts try to claim Cargill is not responsible for paying fair labor wage. On the contrary - food is used as a weapon by "dumping" it into local farm markets to wipe out the local farmers! Somalia had grain dumped at 1/6th the local price when the farmers had controlled Mogadishu - that's how Cargill operates in 70 countries worldwide as the world's largest private corporation, as a Cold War food weapon. Local regimes are thus made dependent on the U.S. for weapons and food dumping (aid) and thus install "free trade zones" to extract resources. El Salvador made mining illegal and thus the corporation as a "legal person" declares their "rights to profit" got taken away as their "due process" rights. It's pretty wild that "legal person" as corporations have more legal rights than sovereign natural persons.
by "climate change pressures" you are ignoring the arctic that is
heating up four times faster than the rest of the planet. There is 1200
gigatons of pressurized methane in the world's largest ocean shelf: East
Siberian Arctic Shelf. The taliks have already melted down to the
subsea permafrost and 50 gigatons of pressurized methane will thus have
an "abrupt eruption" soon into the atmosphere, thereby doubling
atmospheric temperature. You underestimate the power of Mother Nature
taking revenge against civilization. You don't know about this because
you have "Externalized" the empirical costs of environmental pollution.
If you took "climate change pressures" seriously then you would know the
true cost of abrupt global warming. Go to Natalia Shakhova researchgate
for details or "arctic-news" blogspot.
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