Opinion & Analysis

Now a book-length treatment of the April 2002 coup against Chavez is available: Brian Nelson's The Silence and the Scorpion. It is a shame that a progressive publisher like Nation Books would publish such a one-sided account of the coup against Chávez and thereby contribute to the already overwhelming media meme that Chávez and his supporters are violent brutes.

Read or listen to the mainstream media these days and you get the impression that Sunday's coup in Honduras was all about a simple disagreement over the constitutionality of presidential term limits.  But as the coup unfolds it's becoming clear that the authorities want something more.

Greg Wilpert's book is important: important not only as an account of developments in Venezuela under Hugo Chávez between 1999-2007, but as a "critical interrogation" of Chávez' "socialism of the 21^st Century," which should make it important for any individual or group that is seeking to create an alternative society to capitalism.

In Venezuela, not only is health care a right; it is recognized as essential for true participatory democracy.

Worldwide condemnation has followed the coup that unseated President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras on Sunday, June 28. Nation-wide mobilizations and a general strike demanding that Zelaya be returned to power are growing in spite of increased military repression.

On Sunday the 28^th of June in early hours of the morning, a group of hooded soldiers, who affirmed they had received orders from the High Command of the Armed Forces, assaulted the residence of President Zelaya, in order to kidnap him, disappear him for a number of hours and later expel him violently from his homeland.

No, this is not Venezuela in 2002.  Nor is it Haiti, 2004.  It's Honduras, 2009, but roughly the same story is once again being told, on a different stage with different actors.   But that difference could mean everything.

As of 10:30am, Sunday morning, no statements have been issued by the Washington concerning the military coup in Honduras.

This is another one of the presentations broadcast on the state-owned television channel VTV. It was part of a forum "Intellectuals, Democracy & Socialism" organized by the Centro Internacional Miranda over June 2-3, which has sparked a debate about the role of criticism within the Bolivarian process.

This presentation by Vladimir Acosta, broadcast on the state-owned television channel VTV, was part of a forum "Intellectuals, Democracy & Socialism" organized by the Centro Internacional Miranda over June 2-3, which has sparked a debate about the role of criticism within the Bolivarian process.