A socialist reply to Brian Thompson’s letter

Dear friends,

on June 4th, “Brian Thompson” wrote:

“Chavez’ mysterious disappearance

June 4th 2009, by Brian Thompson
OK, so maybe ‘Luis Posada Carriles’ people’, with their arthritic limbs and Alzheimer’s-racked minds may have been plotting to kill Hugo Chavez. However, this does not explain his absence from ‘Alo Presidente’. Why would Chavez cancel two days of a planned four day program? Certainly he wasn’t afraid of Posada Carriles’ people barging into the studios of ‘Alo Presidente’? If I were a Chavez supporter, I’d be concerned for the president’s health. These sorts of unexplained public disappearances are characteristic of a leader with a personality cult around him. Appearances are important to maintain, and any chink in the president’s armor must be covered up. Again I will pose the question: Why did Chavez disappear from public view for three days?”

I too am curious about what has happened with Hugo Chavez lately. But why would “Brian Thompson” focus on criticising Hugo Chavez, without including words in support of democratic socialism? Why would a person do that? Is it because they don’t support the revolution that the people of Venezuela are making. It is because such a person supports capitalist oppression, exploitation and impoverishment, instead of supporting the socialist system of sharing of the wealth and power amongst everyone in Venezuela?

As for the topic of assassination attempts:

Contrary to what “Brian Thompson” implies, the U.S. empire and its fascist allies in Latin America are not a phantom menace. They are a very real threat.

The U.S. empire and its fascist allies in Latin America have a long history of using violence to try to achieve their ends: including the rightwing coups in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and pre-revolutionary Cuba; U.S.-led invasions and terrorist wars against the people of Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico and Nicaragua; U.S. support for torture, state terrorism and death-squads in most countries in Latin America when those countries were ruled by rightwing dictatorships; and even as you read this, the U.S. support continues for state terrorism and death-squads in Colombia and to some extent in Mexico.

The U.S. government recently supported the attempted coup against the democratic socialist government in Venezuela (in 2002), and also supported the more recent fascist uprisings in Bolivia and fascist riots in Venezuela. The U.S. government continues to support fascist organizations and rightwing and capitalist organizations in general in Latin America, attempting to replace leftwing governments with rightwing ones.

Those people committed the biggest pre-9/11 terrorist bombing in the Americas: C.I.A. ally Luis Posada Carriles’s 1976 bomb attack against a Cuban airplane, which killed 73 people.

The many things I have written above are only a small sample of the harm that the USA and their fascist allies in Latin America have done.

And contrary to what “Brian Thompson” implies, the U.S. empire and their fascist allies are not too old to be effective. They still have plenty of sharp-minded planners, and plenty of able-bodied people to do their dirty work – because the world has plenty of ignorant and greedy people. The world has plenty of people who don’t yet understand that the ways of capitalism and imperialism harm us all, and that the way of socialism (solidarity, sharing and equality) creates a happy life for everyone.

For socialism and peace,
from Simon Ashworth Wood : )