JAMES PETRAS, THE GUNSLINGER.

Red Star.

YESTERDAY WITH FIDEL AND ORTEGA, TODAY WITH CHAVEZ. WHAT ELSE IS NEW?
In http://www.axisoflogic.com/ and other websites of a similar tendency, including his own, an article by James Petras: “Venezuela: between Ballots and Bullets” clearly shows how the senior extremist lies, in order to make his point in defense of the Chavez dictatorial regime. The support of the Chavez regime by Petras and other U.S. leftist intellectuals is perplexing, as the Venezuelan left, much better informed about Chavez, is unanimously opposed to the putative son of Castro, since they see him as a typical fascist ruler, in the same mold of Mussolini and Mugabe.
Petras lies when he defines the Venezuelan students opposed to the Chavez regime as “privileged upper and middle class”. In the first place we should ask Petras what is wrong with belonging to the middle class. Being an emeritus sociology professor from the State University of New York Petras must belong to the upper-middle class he so resents. Petras lies about the Venezuelan students since they come from all social strata. Most, in fact, come from the working classes. The Venezuelan student rebellion represents a major headache for Chavez precisely because they represent a traditional sector opposed to dictatorships and abuse of power in our country. Chavez does not know how to repress them effectively because many of them are relatives of his own bureaucracy, including ministers and military commanders. What many of their pro-Chavez parents have already lost, in the way of decency and honor, they have kept intact helped by their youthfulness and their love of freedom.
The Venezuelan students have been protesting against the fascist leader and will continue to protest peacefully. Chavez has been insulting them and Petras repeats the insults like a red parrot: “privileged, rich, oligarchs”. Chavez has claimed that students “drug themselves before going on the streets”. Sad to say this is precisely what he does to the crowds he pays to support him. Those are mostly made up of paid public employees who are given a kit for the day where rum and cash figure prominently and are brought to the meeting places by hundreds of buses that can be seen parked in neighboring streets. This is the other side of the coin that Petras completely ignores, probably because he has never witnessed these events first hand.
Petras attacks former Minister of Defense, Raul Baduel, for publicly defining the attempted constitutional reform of Chavez as a coup d’etat. But this is clearly what it is, although Baduel does not have the moral authority to accuse Chavez, since he is the military gorilla who brought him back in April 2002, after the people had expelled him from power. The legitimate voices of the opposition are the students, the Catholic Church, the democratic left, the conservatives, the labor unions, the industrial sector and most of civil society. All polls indicate that 60% or more of the population rejects the reform. As a sociologist Petras should know that a social contract is not something to be approved by 40% or even 50% of the voters but it needs an overwhelming majority to be legitimate. This is especially true since the reform pretends to change Venezuela from a democracy into a fascist-socialist-military dictatorship. The reform is already dead, Mr. Petras.
Chavez has a lot of money, stolen from the people, and he can certainly afford the best intellectual gunslingers money can buy. They once worked for Castro, later for the sandinistas, now for Chavez. This, in a nutshell, is the Petras story.

He predicted correctly the incident between the King

and the Joker!