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in all of South American history, and possibly, also, in the history of democracy itself. It is certainly the first time in modern history that the collective courage of ordinary people--a million Venezuelans who poured into the streets to stop the 2002 coup--succeeded in defeating a U.S.-supported fascist coup in Latin America. In their three days of (Bush-supported) power, the coupsters suspended the Constitution, the National Assembly, the courts and all civil rights, and the corpo/fascist 'news' monopoly, RCTV, actively participated in that coup, including falsifying video footage to make it appear that pro-Chavez demonstrators were shooting anti-Chavez demonstrators, when the opposite was true, hosting meetings of the coupsters and promulgating other lies in their behalf. "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" chronicles the entire event, much of it from inside Miraflores Palace (the seat of government), by Irish filmmakers who happened to be there doing a documentary on Chavez, when the coup occurred. They did an incredible documentary on the coup itself, and the remarkable defeat of the coup by the Venezuelan people, in these ad hoc circumstances.
Since that important moment, when Venezuelans restored their Constitution, and welcomed back their kidnapped president, by popular demand, the political landscape of Latin America has been utterly transformed, with leftist presidents now in power in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. The balance of power has completely shifted toward social justice and regional and national sovereignty and against any more U.S. interference. The next time the Bushwhacks tried a violent coup, this last September, the rest of South America was ready, and acted swiftly to back Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, to defeat a Bushwhack funded and organized, white separatist coup attempt that turned into rioting and murder. The South American leaders had formed a new organization, UNASUR--the South American Common Market--without the U.S. to obstruct the interests of Latin Americans. When Morales threw the U.S. ambassador and the DEA out of Bolivia, for their collusion with the coupsters, UNASUR strongly backed Morales, and helped him get peace talks going with the saner elements of the white separatist opposition. (This was possible only after the U.S. ambassador and the DEA were expelled--they were apparently trying to prevent any resolution of the problem, and wanted a civil war.)
Earlier in the year, before UNASUR was formalized, they had taken the U.S./Colombia assault on Ecuador--which almost started a war between the U.S./Colombia and Ecuador/Venezuela--to the informal Rio Group (all Latin American--no U.S.), where they managed to prevent the war that the Bushwhacks wanted. By September, they not only knew they needed their own organization, they had formed it, and its very first act was to strongly back up Morales, with official (and unanimous) resolutions, and peace and investigative commissions sent to Bolivia. (They also stated their intention to put UNASUR's headquarters in La Paz, Bolivia.) One of the particular diplomatic triumphs at that first UNASAUR meeting was Colombia's vote with the majority, to make it unanimous--a success that I think Michele Batchelet, president of Chile, was responsible for.
None of this would have been possible--in my opinion--if the people of Venezuela had not turned back the Bushwhack-supported coup in 2002. It gave courage to leftist democratic movements everywhere. It demonstrated that the people canwin, if they stick together. One of the bitterest and nastiest ironies of corpo/fascist demonization of Chavez is their presumption that the people of Venezuela would put up with a "dictator" after they saved their own democracy and literally saved Chavez's life, and restored him to rightful power. But they are not speaking as people who support democracy. They are anti-democracy. They are speaking for Exxon Mobil and Bechtel and Dyncorp and Blackwater and Occidential Petroleum and Chiquita International and Monsanto. Those entities don't like being "dictated" to by the rightful representative of the people in a sovereign democratic country. And they would kill him if they could, and every other leftist leader, and do their pogroms against leftists and democrats with a small d, and union leaders and the poor, as they have done time and again in the history of U.S./Latin American relations.
That era is OVER. That is what "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" is about--the end of the era of U.S. bullying and killing and raping and pillaging in Latin America.
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