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User:Jrtayloriv/Workshop/Venezuela notes

< User:Jrtayloriv | Workshop

Just a collection of references for myself and others to refer to when researching Venezuela-related topics. Not intended to be comprehensive ...

(I just created this, and it is very much a work in progress -- I'll add much more as time goes on) -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 23:42, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

General

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Books
  • Nicholas Kozloff (2006). Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics, and the Challenge to the United States. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9781403973153.
  • Gregory Wilpert (2007). Changing Venezuela By Taking Power: The History and Policies of the Chavez Government. Verso. ISBN 978-1-84467-552-4.
  • Chávez Aleida Guevara (2006). Venezuela and the New Latin America: An interview with Hugo Chávez. New Delhi, India: Leftword Books. -- (isbn-ify me)
  • Gott, Richard (2005). Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution. Verso Books. ISBN 1-84467-533-5. Retrieved 13 November 2007.
  • Hugo Chávez; Marta Harnecker; Chesa Boudin (2005). Understanding the Venezuelan Revolution: Hugo Chavez Talks to Marta Harnecker. Monthly Review Press. ISBN 978-1583671276.
  • Golinger
Journal articles
Web
Video

Foreign policy

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  • Relations w/ China, Iran, Cuba, etc.
  • WSF in Caracas
  • Hugo Chávez and the Politics of Race, Nikolas Kozloff, Counterpunch, October 14, 2005 -- look more into oil to Bronx, and attempted Katrina aid

ALBA / SUCRE / Integration

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U.S. involvement

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Discuss U.S. funding of anti-Chavez groups via NED, et. al. ... discuss U.S. motives (share of oil from Vene, threat of a good example)

Books
Journals
Web

Economics

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  • Find more from Toussaint ...

Poverty

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Here are some detailed economic analyses of poverty in Venezuela, which also rebut the most common mass media lies:

  • Mark Weisbrot; Luis Sandoval; David Rosnick (2006). "Poverty Rates in Venezuela: Getting the Numbers Right" (PDF). Center for Economic and Policy Research.
  • Dan Beeton (November/December 2006). "Wrong Numbers: Distorting Veezuela's record on poverty". Extra!. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |work= (help) -- covers common mass media distortions and fabrications. Especially notable is rebuttal of the common myth "poverty decreased because they changed their measuring stick, it actually increased, etc..." (absolutely untrue, even U.S. controlled institutions like the OAS were, in order to maintain some semblance of credibility, to admit that poverty has decreased -- see "Poverty Rates in Venezuela" above for accurate, detailed, scholarly report on Venezuelan poverty statistics)

Oil

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Agriculture, land reform, and food sovereignity

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Political / Democratic freedoms

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Communal Councils / Coops / Participatory Democracy

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Military

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  • reserves as defense against foreign invasion -- preparing for guerrilla war against occupiers
  • chavez military spending, compare to Colombia and U.S. ... also talk about types of equipment he is purchasing ...
  • role of military in Plan Bolivar, etc. due to corrupt old-guard politicians preventing social reform ...
  • Chavez relation to military due to history in military

1992 coup attempt

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  • reality of Perez administration, level of popular support, etc.

2002 coup attempt

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2004 recall referendum

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  • Wilpert, Gregory (2004). "Recall or (Re)Vindication for Chávez?". NACLA Report on the Americas. 37 (no. 5): 10–12. {{cite journal}}: |issue= has extra text (help)

Human rights

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Women's Rights

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Press freedom

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Indigenous rights

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Constitution

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  • Wilpert, "Changing"

Media misrepresentation

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Sources which discuss inaccurate media coverage

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Given their long record of blatant disregard for the truth on this topic, we should be extremely skeptical about claims made in the corporate press, especially when they don't provide any solid evidence or sources to back their claims. We should give preference to scholarly sources, or at least those non-scholarly sources which provide verifiable factual evidence to back their claims.

Here are some reliable sources that discuss why we should be very careful about blindly accepting information that is not backed by factual evidence, just because something that meets WP:RS claims that it is true:

case studies

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  • "food rotting warehouse" -- Should cover this, in comparison to media coverage of rotting food in U.S. or India ... show how extremely disproportionate coverage was

Empty Revolution

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Francisco Rodríguez wrote an economic analysis titled "An Empty Revolution" in the journal Foreign Affairs (run by ye old corporate mouthpiece, the Council on Foreign Relations). The report was full of factual inaccuracies, statistical manipulations, information taken out of context, and numerous other forms of poor scholarship and intellectual dishonesty. It's worth giving some extra attention here, though, because it's one of the few "scholarly" works (as opposed to polemical journalistic pieces in the NY Times and Economist) that has been published attempting to claim that things have not improved for the poor in Venezuela under Chavez.

Economist Mark Weisbrot published a detailed rebuttal of this. Rodríguez responded to Weisbrot's rebuttal, misquoting and misrepresenting Weisbrot's position, presenting further inaccurate facts and manipulated statistics, and ignoring the most significant of Weisbrot's criticisms. Weisbrot pointed this out in his response to this attempted "rebuttal". It's a long discussion, but well worth reading to understand some of the techniques used by the corporate "prestige" press to mislead people about the economic situation in Venezuela.

Venezuela: inflation (average consumer prices)
Year Inflation
rate (%)		 Year Inflation
rate (%)		 Year Inflation
rate (%)		 Year Inflation
rate (%)
1980 21.4 1990 40.7 2000 16.2 2010 29.8
1981 16.2 1991 34.2 2001 12.5
1982 9.6 1992 31.4 2002 22.4
1983 6.2 1993 38.1 2003 31.1
1984 12.2 1994 60.85 2004 21.7
1985 11.4 1995 59.9 2005 16.0
1986 11.5 1996 99.9 2006 13.7
1987 28.1 1997 50.0 2007 18.7
1988 29.5 1998 35.8 2008 30.4
1989 84.5 1999 23.6 2009 27.1

Source (up to 2008) : International Monetary Fund: Data and Statistics
Source (2009 - 2010) : CIA World Factbook

First, there are numerous factual inaccuracies, such as saying that inflation is increasing (a view which even the IMF doesn't try to push), or that food is harder to get, which is an interesting thing to say considering the stats on malnutrition (way down) and caloric intake (way up). Maybe he means that it's harder for his friends to buy caviar?

Another problem with Rodriguez' work is that in order to be able to push the view that poverty hasn't improved, he is forced to reframe the issues in an abnormal way (just like Pearson, in her Washington Post article, came up with a new way of talking about decreasing inflation so as to make it look like inflation is "skyrocketing"). The normal way of analyzing anti-poverty programs is to look at whether poverty indicators have improved -- things like literacy, malnutrition, infant mortality, disposable income, available services, etc. But Rodriguez says that although these have all improved, we shouldn't pay attention to that in the case of Venezuela, and we shouldn't look at how much more is being spent on social programs and poverty reduction. What we should do instead, for Venezuela, is to look at how much the government "prioritizes" poverty reduction. He conveniently defines this new economic metric as the percentage of government funds spent on poverty (which he claims, inaccurately, have remained stable), rather than the absolute amount being spent (which even he admits has increased significantly).

Further reading

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Need to go through these and integrate into articles ...

  • Latin American & Twenty-First Century Socialism. By: HARNECKER, MARTA; FOSTER, JOHN BELLAMY. Monthly Review: An Independent Socialist Magazine, Jul/Aug2010, Vol. 62 Issue 3, preceding p3-86, 103p; (AN 51548260) -- also ebsco
  • Parenti, C. (2005). Hugo Chávez and Petro Populism. Nation, 280(14), 15-21. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.
  • Venezuela's Revolution and the Oil Company Inside. By: Parenti, Christian. NACLA Report on the Americas, Jan/Feb2006, Vol. 39 Issue 4, p8-13, 6p, 3 Black and White Photographs; (AN 19430799)
  • Ellner, S. (2010). Chávez Pushes the Limits: Radicalization and Discontent in Venezuela. NACLA Report on the Americas, 43(4), 7-12. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.
  • Venezuela: Defying Globalization's Logic. By: Ellner, Steve. NACLA Report on the Americas, Sep/Oct2005, Vol. 39 Issue 2, p20-45, 6p, 2 Black and White Photographs; (AN 18140908)
  • ELLNER S. The Perennial Debate over Socialist Goals Played Out in Venezuela. Science & Society [serial online]. January 2010;74(1):63-84. Available from: Academic Search Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed August 27, 2010.
  • Leftist Goals and the Debate over Anti-Neoliberal Strategy in Latin America. By: Ellner, Steve. Science & Society, Spring2004, Vol. 68 Issue 1, p10-32, 23p; (AN 12471898)
  • The Bolivarian Government of Hugo Chávez: Democratic Alternative for Latin America? By: Figueroa, Víctor M.. Critical Sociology (Brill Academic Publishers), 2006, Vol. 32 Issue 1, p187-211, 25p; DOI: 10.1163/156916306776150322; (AN 20005815) -- EBSCO
  • Class/Race Polarisation in Venezuela and the Electoral Success of Hugo Chávez: a break with the past or the song remains the same? By: Cannon, Barry. Third World Quarterly, Jun2008, Vol. 29 Issue 4, p731-748, 18p, 3 Charts; DOI: 10.1080/01436590802075020; (AN 31937682)
  • Bolívar and Chávez. By: Mészáros, István. Monthly Review: An Independent Socialist Magazine, Jul/Aug2007, Vol. 59 Issue 3, p55-84, 30p; (AN 25554831)
  • Conversations with Chávez and Castro. (cover story) By: PENN, SEAN. Nation, 12/15/2008, Vol. 287 Issue 20, p11-20, 8p, 1 Color Photograph; (AN 35413576)
  • The Left Needs More Socialism. By: Aronson, Ronald. Nation, 4/17/2006, Vol. 282 Issue 15, p28-30, 3p, 1 Illustration; (AN 20326241)
  • The World Social Forum: Protest or Celebration? (cover story) By: Blanding, Michael. Nation, 3/6/2006, Vol. 282 Issue 9, p17-20, 3p, 1 Map; (AN 19757551)
  • The Bolivarian Process in Historical Perspective: Where is Venezuela Going? By: Webber, Jeffery R.. Against the Current, Jan/Feb2010, Vol. 24 Issue 6, p33-39, 7p; (AN 47903829)
  • Latin Left Turn. By: EVIATAR, DAPHNE. Nation, 12/25/2006, Vol. 283 Issue 22, p5-6, 2p; (AN 23330874)
  • Revolution Within the Revolution: A Caracas Collective and the Face of Che Guevara. By: Cambre, Carolina. Review of Education, Pedagogy & Cultural Studies, Sep/Oct2009, Vol. 31 Issue 4, p338-364, 27p, 10 Black and White Photographs; DOI: 10.1080/10714410903132949; (AN 43840423)
  • Hugo Chávez has a mission -- and oil. By: Fraser, Barbara J.. National Catholic Reporter, 5/16/2008, Vol. 44 Issue 19, p16-17, 2p; (AN 32115291)
  • Green Revolution? By: Kennedy, Sebastian; Markovits, Martin. Earth Island Journal, Autumn2007, Vol. 22 Issue 3, p55-58, 4p; (AN 26696808)
  • Chávez Talks to The Nation. Nation, 10/19/2009, Vol. 289 Issue 12, p8-8, 1/3p; (AN 44395679)
  • Cameron, M. (2009). Latin America's Left Turns: beyond good and bad. Third World Quarterly, 30(2), 331-348. doi:10.1080/01436590802681082.
  • Collins, S. (2005). Breaking the Mold? Venezuela's Defiance of the Neoliberal Agenda *. New Political Science, 27(3), 367-395. doi:10.1080/07393140500220409.
  • Sustar, L. (2005). REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN VENEZUELA. New Labor Forum (Routledge), 14(3), 97-108. doi:10.1080/1095760500245474.

Misc

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  • As far as the 30,000 tons of rotting food in the warehouse story -- compare with this: [1] (48,000,000 tons wasted each year in the U.S.)

Find more reliable sources for:

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The following contain valid data, as far as I've been able to verify so far. Find WP:RS that verify info for these, and add to lists above:

explore me

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Note to self: Take time to dig through these, and find Venezuela-related WP:RS or leads for further research ...

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