Inside the Fires of Imperialism by Manuel Valenzuela

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In what was initially designed to be a trilogy of essays by Manuel Valenzuela, (he now informs us of an extra writing) the writer gives us, in a somewhat less passionate style than his two previous essays, his views on, in the main, the American Empire's involvement in the Middle East.

That said it is nonetheless a very worthy read and, being a self confessed admirer of Hugo Chavez. Whether you agree with me or not about Hugo, he stills falls into the, enemy of my enemy is my friend, category. I am going to offer up as a taster a part of Valenzuela's writing on the subject of dear old Hugo.

Before I do I have to make mention of Mister Valenzuela's first piece in this series.
Whether it was the content or the passion with which it was written that so appealed to me I care not analyse, but I thought Homeland Born And Bred was the best thing I had read in years but unfortunately like many great writings, and in my opinion only, so difficult to follow.

Chavez has become the exception, not the rule, to the Empire’s demand that a nation’s oil not be used for the good of the people. He has not sold out his nation, and his people, to the dictates of the Empire. With enormous reserves of proven oil, said to rival or even surpass those of Saudi Arabia, Venezuela is an obvious choice for American intervention, and will most likely become a victim of the Empire’s hegemony before too long. Its intransigence against the Empire’s commands will not be tolerated much longer.

Its crime, indeed, Hugo Chavez’s crime, which no oil-rich nation or leader is allowed to commit, is redistribute the nation’s oil profits to its citizens and to the state’s growing treasury. Venezuela’s crime, and why she is now a target of the Empire, is having the audacity to use its own resources for the betterment of the population, and the state itself. What has made the Bolivarian state a pariah of the Empire, placed in the waiting line for the Empire’s firing squad, is that it refused to comply or sacrifice its people to the demands of America. Her great error, in the minds of the American establishment, was to destroy the cancer of neoliberal economics, the so-called Washington Consensus, the disaster of debauched capitalism and market colonialism. For this indiscretion, together with its decision to keep oil revenues within the interests of the nation, instead of allowing American energy conglomerates to pillage oil and revenues, Venezuela is now a target of American hegemony.more