First of all...thank you to all of you “up North”...
for having sent me the articles on Venezuela that you have.
I would deeply appreciate it
if you’d be willing to continue to do so.
I read every one of them.
During the last six months of build up to this election...
it has not felt very nice here in Venezuela.
There has been a nerve wracking
electric background of fear...actually terror.
This climate of fear has had a pervasive quality about it
making it very hard to not let one’s inner focus
be drawn outside oneself a bit by this.
The moments we have “slipped”...
forgetting where we leave off and Venezuela’s process begins...
has caused us to often become consumed
in non-specific fears and insecurities about our new home.
However now...two days after the elections...
many of the personal projections on the world around us
that were caused by buying into the local emotional climate...
seem to have cleared.
It’s much easier to feel this morning
where I leave off...and where Venezuela begins.
Hence...writing to you is a bit easier to do as well.
What’s made the experience of the last 6 months
even more diabolical
is that this very palpable background vibe
was clearly created more by people’s thoughts “about”...
than by any actual reality.
Therefore...
because projections and their ensuing fears
are very much a mechanical, mental process...
the vibe around here yesterday and today
is very quiet...
BUT ONLY BECAUSE
the so-called success of this election
has acted like a fear and pain switch
finally being turned off
by those who do not understand
the radical vision of their own president.
And while their quiet euphoric smile of success
make it a little easier for me
to bring my focus back inside...
I find as I “return within”
that there is a sadness present
that I will try and write about at the end of this letter.
The one item I feel the most regret about
is that there was so much misrepresentation
about changing the President’s term restrictions.
The opposition group’s beliefs...
fueled by North American media and CIA support...
did a magnificent job of spinning this topic
in a way that made it seem that a “yes” vote
would irrefutably mean Chavez forever.
Whenever you said to these people...
yes...true...
but only IF...
he was re-elected...
It just never made any difference.
Most of “them” were convinced
that if these reforms went through...
Chavez would come and take their land...
my God...I have even heard fears
of Chavez taking away their children!
I am so worn out from all the glazed eyes
and the muttering of....
”C-C-C-C-C-C-omunism is coming...”
What is also so sad to me
is that most of the people here don’t realize
that most of the propaganda
they have been working off of in their fight against Chavez
has been scripted by a well known
media and market research company in Miami.
This was repeatedly exposed over the last few years.
Many Venezuelans have no idea whatsoever
the degree to which they have recently cooperated and strengthened
US covert operations in Venezuela...and the world.
If you have read any of my emails over the last few months...
you would have seen information about staged violence...
manipulated crowd size photos,
and the exposing of certain CIA operatives here etc.
A recent interview By Bill Moyers
of Colonel Philip Roettinger on the PBS TV station in the states
only, at least to me, further elucidates this point...
Moyers: “Guatemala 1954. Flushed with success America’s Secret Government
decided another troublesome leader must go. This time it was Jacobo Arbenz,
the democratically elected president of Guatemala. Philip Roettinger was
recruited from the Marines to join the CIA team.”
Colonel Philip Roettinger (Ret.) U.S. Marine Corps: “It was explained to me
that it was very important for the security of the United States that we
were going to prevent a Soviet beach-head in this hemisphere, which we have heard
about very recently of course, and that the Guatemalan government was
Communist and we had to do something about it.”
Moyers: “President Arbenz had admired Franklin D. Roosevelt and his
government voted often with the American position at the United Nations.
But in trying to bring a new deal to Guatemala, Arbenz committed two sins in
the eyes of the Eisenhower administration. First, when he opened the system to
all political parties he recognized the Communists too.”
Roettinger: “Well, of course there was not even a hint of Communism in his
government. He had no Communists in his Cabinet. He did permit the existence
of a very small Communist party.”
Moyers: “Arbenz also embarked on a massive land reform program. Less than 3
per cent of the land owners held more than 70 per cent of the land. So
Arbenz nationalized more than 1 1⁄2 million acres, including land owned by his own
family and turned it over to peasants. Much of that land belonged to the
United Fruit Company, the giant American firm that was intent on keeping
Guatemala, quite literally, a banana republic. United Fruit appealed to its
close friends in Washington, including the Dulles brothers, who said that
Arbenz was openly playing the Communist game. He had to go.”
Roettinger: “This was sudden death for him. There was no chance of him
winning this fight because of the fact that he had done this to the United Fruit
Company. Plus the fact, that he was overthrowing the hegemony of the United
States over this area. And this was dangerous, it [would] not be tolerated.
We couldn’t tolerate that.”
Moyers: “From Honduras, the same country that today is the Contra staging
base, the CIA launched a small band of mercenaries against Guatemala. They
were easily turned back. So with its own planes and pilots the CIA then
bombed the capital. Arbenz fled and was immediately replaced by an American
puppet, Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas.”
Roettinger: “He overturned all of the reformist activities of President
Arbenz. He gave the land back to the United Fruit Company that had been
confiscated. He took land from the peasants and gave it back to the land
owners.”
Bill Moyers: “The CIA had called its covert action against Guatemala,
Operation Success. Military dictators ruled the country for the next 30
years. The United States provided them with weapons and trained their officers. The
Communists we saved them from would have been hard pressed to do it better.
Peasants were slaughtered. Political opponents were tortured. Suspected
insurgents were shot, stabbed, burned alive or strangled. There were so many
deaths at one point that coroners complained they couldn’t keep up with the
work load. Operation Success.”
Roettinger: “What we did has caused a succession of repressive military
dictatorships in that country and has been responsible for the deaths over
100,000 of their citizens.”
Moyers: “Success breeds success, sometimes with dreary repetition. Mario
Sandoval Alarcon began his career in the CIA’s adventure in Guatemala. Today
he’s known as the Godfather of the Death Squads. In 1981, after lobbying
Ronald Reagan’s advisors for military aid to Guatemala, Sandoval Alarcon
danced at the Inaugural Ball.”
To me...yesterday was a sign
that the most idiotic faction of Venezuelan mentality
still has a finger nail hold on power here.
This will mean that all the inane, idiotic, childish, perceptions about Chavez
will now have an even more idiotic egoic boost of energy behind them.
The most stupid group of intelligent people I have EVER met in my life,
will now be walking around this place feeling smart, proud...
never realizing that it’s going to be a long time
before they wake up to the fact
that they are only serving themselves and their money.
Everyone is raving...especially the other party...
about the fact that Chavez has not called for a recount.
I see in North American media...”Chavez humbled...”.
Other headlines blaring in Big Font Boldness...
”Democracy lives in Venezuela.”
To me...such bullshit...
Democracy...at least in the ways that the media
has been claiming concern about it in Venezuela...
has been doing just fine here and was never...NEVER in jeopardy.
And Chavez being humbled...HUMBLED...by this?
My sense about that is...nonsense.
He is an incredible warrior with a perseverance behind his dream
that most of us cannot even imagine.
You think he didn’t have it planned out ages ago
as to exactly how he would act...what he would say...if the referendums lost?
I think the way I finished that last sentence is critically important
because it tries to shed light on much of the quiet ridiculous euphoria
that is present in some factions here right now.
Dear friends...Chavez did not lose.
The REFORMS to the Constitution were voted down.
What’s really a shame
is that nobody will ever show you in English
all 69 of these reforms.
There were many many good...powerful items in there.
Finally... a point I have raised before...
very few people here want to study the type of Socialism
Chavez is trying and will continue to try and put forth.
Very few people here realize
that while they have prevented some steps
to erode their stranglehold over maintaining a status quo in the corruption here...
while they have protected the money they make by keeping the poor...poor...
they have really hindered the progress
of one of the more dynamic
and interesting social movements on earth at this time.
One thing though...
Danielle and I are two people
who are very sensitive to energy
and the energy around here
was distinctly different starting yesterday.
You can feel that the electric tension
that’s been in the background
since we moved here seems to be gone...
at least for now.
It feels...softer here today.
Alas...the opposition will get a lot of mileage
from believing that the energy is better today
because they voted down some nasty things that were against them.
What they will probably never understand
is that this is not exactly what happened.
What also happened on Sunday
is that they voted against
their own projected fears...
and they won.
They voted down what they feared
without ever realizing that if what they feared had been real...
they never would have been able to vote on it in the first place!
All they have really accomplished this week
is the deepening of their illusions
about what they think is going on in their own country.
The saddest thing to me...
is that I will probably come out better
from the way the voting went.
It will probably be easier to sell my land
and I will probably get a better price
because more people will relax
and know that their land
won’t be grabbed away from them
after they have bought it from me
by this nasty nasty dictator.
bah.
It may even be easier for me to get a phone line...
and probably some other incidentals might get a bit “better” now as well.
But better and easier are two things
that the country I used to live in
has used to boil the frogs of its own population...
do you understand?
Put frogs in a pot of water...
show them that putting them in this pot...
will make things easier...better...more secure...etc etc...
Then turn the temperature of the water up very slowly.
The end result becomes obvious...
a lesson that is good to learn
IF you are standing outside the pot.
But...as much as I have done
my own expat share of complaining
about how hard life is here in Venezuela...
I did not come here for easier...better.
I came originally to get my mouth fixed by an extraordinary dentist
and I CAME BACK because Venezuela has seemed like
one of the most interesting social experiments anywhere.
I came back after reading up a lot on the man behind these changes.
I came back because I felt certain things
when I read about his vision
that energetically reminded me how I felt
about certain incredible human beings in the states
who either had no chance of getting elected and should have been
or had been assassinated.
But...
what’s most important to me this morning...
is the totally irrelevancy of my little rant here
and the irrelevancy of every other rant or gloat
currently occurring anywhere in Venezuela or Russia...or wherever...
As far as I am concerned...
the only really salient point this morning
is that politics has clearly not evolved itself
into a new paradigm yet
and won’t do so
until there are enough human beings on earth
who have awakened to who they really are.
The real empowerment of Venezuela
will not come from voting Constitutional reforms up or down.
It will come from Venezuelans awakening
beyond the places that they are mired in at this time within themselves.
This is why world peace
will continue to be restricted
to being solely a concept
until we all become willing to do
whatever is necessary to be done
to personally end all war within us...
and live...
no longer from the limitations of our mind and its thoughts....
but from the heart.
