Reply #25: Chavez speech on "Capitalism Is Savagery"... [View All]

[whistle]

...at 2005 World Social Forum, April 10th:

<snip>
Friends and Enemies.
I have been a Maoist since I entered military school, I read Che Guevara, I read Bolivar and his speeches and letters, becoming a Bolivarian Maoist, a mixture of all that.
Mao says that it is imperative, for every revolutionary, to determine very clearly who are your friends and who are your enemies.
In Latin America this is particularly important.

<.....>
The whip of counter-revolution.
Trotsky said that every revolution needs the whip of a counterrevolution, and the counterrevolution whipped us hard, with economic, media and social sabotage, terrorism, bombs, violence, blood and death, coup d'etat, institutional manipulation, international pressure, they tried to convert Venezuela into a subservient country, trying to install a transnational power above our laws, our institutions and our constitution. But the Venezuelan people demonstrated to the oligarchy that they will never surrender.
We resisted, we defended ourselves, and then went on the counteroffensive. As a result in 2003, for the first time, Venezuela recuperated its oil company, which had always been in the hands of the Venezuelan oligarchy and the North American Empire.

<.....>
Capitalism is savagery.
Before, education was privatized. That's the neo-liberal, imperialist plan, health systems were privatized, that cannot be, it's a fundamental human right. Health, education, water, energy, public services, that cannot be given to the voracity of private capital, that denies those rights to the people, that's the road to savagery, capitalism is savagery.
Every day I'm more convinced, less capitalism and more socialism.
We need to transcend capitalism, but capitalism cannot be transcended from within. Capitalism needs to be transcended via socialism, with equality and justice, that's the path to transcend the capitalist power.
I'm also convinced that it's possible to do it in democracy but watch it, what type of democracy not the one Mr. Superman wants to impose.
<more>

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/South_America/CapitalismSavagery_Chavez.html