Venezuela: Once more, beware of the Ides of March!

University of Los Andes (ULA) professor Franz J. T. Lee writes: On December 26, 2005, in a commentary "Cassandra warns: Venezuela, Beware of the Ides of March," I explained the following: "On March 20, 2006, Iran, Nation No. 1 on the current Yankee hit list of the Axis of Evil, which finds itself just next to or before Venezuela, is scheduled to begin trading oil for Petroeuros on its own 'newly minted' Iranian Oil Bourse [IOB]."

Furthermore I pointed out that Iraq's change over from petro-dollars to petro-euros was the final nail into Hussein's political coffin, by hook or by crook, the Yankee armed invasion had to become a brutal necessity.

This move by an OPEC country, that could become a paradigm for others to follow, spelled doom for the future American war economy already in shambles.

Meanwhile, Venezuela has followed the trend and deposited her some US$30 billion petro-reserves in Swiss Banks, and that is one of the main reasons why she is now on the hit list of the "axis of evil" scheduled for imminent military invasion long before this year ends.

"However, I pointed out another another strange coincidence that will appear soon within weeks on Rumsfeld's bloody "shock and awe" horizon: the US Federal Reserve plans to discontinue its usual report of M3 money supply data." Hence, in future, nobody will know when exactly the United States has ceased to exist as an economic world power.

How precise was our warning is being verified every day.

As we know, on February 2, 2006, in the National Press Club of Washington D.C., Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had compared Chavez to Hitler ... as a president although elected democratically, who later usurped political power, got crazy, and together with his "allies" Fidel Castro and Evo Morales, is now dreaming about ruling the world, and as such is threatening 'North American democracy,' and should be eliminated as soon as possible.

Concerning this bare-faced, fascist self-reflection, in another context I commented:

"Let Rumsfeld, Rice, Cheney and Bush look at the mirror on the wall, at the menetekel, at the writing on the North American wall, at their real, true statue of liberty."

A few days ago, on February 14, Rice dashed US Valentine Day overtures to Venezuela; she announced a coming fascist "united front" against Venezuela, the master plan to topple President Chavez, a world necessity that long ago is already overdue.

But, just like in April 2001, do we really see what is coming?

What are we doing to stop it effectively?

Did we learn from past experience? Like how Pope John Paul II has saved us from "communism" ... will the Virgin Mary now save us from a possible, brutal, savage, fascist butchery of the Great Violator, Bush? Are we taking all the necessary defense precautions, to be prepared for a long, protracted, asymmetric, modern guerrilla war on a continental scale?

To stop this coming war, we have to be fully prepared for any kind of war.

If we do not know how to do it, then urgently we have to take some historic lessons from Trotsky, Tito, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Vo Nguyen Giap, Fidel and Che, they all have showed us, in people's war, how to win militarily against great fascist powers armed to their very teeth.

We have to destroy the capitalist, imperialist, corporate world market, of which the USA is only a part, before it destroys humanity in its totality. Burning bushes, empty rum bottles, scorched rice fields and iron ladies come and go, what stays is a world order that exploits, dominates, discriminates, assassinates and alienates us.

What is really threatening us is not a madman or a crazy lady, it is capitalism itself. One thing is crystal clear, if we do not annihilate it here in Venezuela, we will never have the real power to destroy it on a global scale, as globalization, and hence emancipate the human species. As long as we remain capitalist in Latin America, forever, we ourselves will produce and reproduce our own Cisneros, Carmona Estanga or Alfredo Pena; and therewith we will nurture their global counterparts, Bush, Blair or Rice.

Rice even claimed that that truckers in Venezuela are engaged in a strike, Venezuela's National Union of Workers (UNT) issued a categorical rejection of these blatant lies.

Meanwhile many Latin American countries, like Chile, Bolivia and Cuba, and many political leaders and workers all around the world have protested against this new United States aggression and have declared their solidarity with Venezuela, with the Bolivarian Revolution.

With reference to the current situation, in the latest addresses to the nation, President Chavez has revealed to the world the present destabilization measures of the USA, and very fervently and decisively has called the sovereign, the Venezuelan masses, to oppose these latest imperialist maneuvers with arms in their hands, should it become necessary. As I said a while ago, the immediate future of Venezuela is stark dark indeed, however, we have already stopped Bush once, why not this time forever?

Furthermore, to show in reality how serious is the issue, and how near we are to a possible United States military invasion ... that could be launched any moment internally from Paraguana, from Zulia, or externally from Paraguay or Colombia ... two days ago, on February 17, President Chavez revealed that his cabinet is studying how to play their trump card against North American global fascism, that is, when and how to launch the "not a drop of oil threat to the USA," should Bush dare to attack Venezuela within the next weeks.

However, in the long run, this defense strategy could only be effective, if all OPEC countries would declare that any imperialist attack on a member State would be equivalent to an attack on OPEC itself as a whole, would be tantamount to a declaration of total world oil war. The USA would not survive such an oil boycott not for months, not even for weeks.

This would be a formidable weapon that could eliminate the USA as a fascist world power once and for all, and it would give the North American peoples concrete hope to survive the coming concentration camps, that under the "patriot acts" are being constructed in the very USA to hold millions of rebelling, starving, unemployed, domestic citizens.

But, because we do not live in dream world, could we ever convince the upper classes of oil producing countries, enchanted by billions of petro dollars and euros, to unite, to do something for the "miserables," for the "wretched of the earth," to confront Big Brother?

And, if this should be possible, then why still continue class struggle, still make a Bolivarian Revolution? We could advance straight to the next step, to create human emancipation.

However, Martin Niemoeller has explained to us what will certainly occur if in unison, as one, we do not immediately oppose world fascism, eliminate the successors of Hitler in the White House, with all our emancipatory might.

This gruesome, macabre world reality of religiously injected popular pacifism, in which billions vegetate, this victory of the imperialist, corporate mental holocaust, that alienates and dehumanizes a myriad of human minds, very poignantly, Martin Niemoeller has described it as follows:

"In Germany they came first for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up."

Franz J. T. Lee
franz@vheadline.com