http://dissidentvoice.org/2007/12/venezuelan-referendum-a-post-mortem-and-its-aftermath/ a radical newsletter in the struggle for peace and social justice Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:07:30 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://dissidentvoice.org/2007/12/venezuelan-referendum-a-post-mortem-and-its-aftermath/#comment-10512 Laurence Schechtman Mon, 10 Dec 2007 05:49:02 +0000 http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/12/venezuelan-referendum-a-post-mortem-and-its-aftermath/#comment-10512 Thank you Professor Petras. To overcome food shortages and inflation Venezuela need only transfer all non-productive land to farmers' co-operatives, and expropriate all corporations involved with hoarding. These steps are legal within the present constitution. To fiddle with term limits, five years before the next election, without having utilized either workers self mangement or government action to solve the problem of food, is criminally stupid, gives the lie to the rhetoric of "21 Century Socialism," and tends to validate the charge of Bonapartism. Land reform in Venezuela has been painfully slow. As of last May, the government claims to have only "resettled more than 15,000 families." (iht.com/articles/2007/05/17/america/17venezuela.php?page=1) The surest way to precipitate a restoration of the old regime is to arouse popular expectations and then frustrate them. Will the Chavez regime institute land to the tiller and factories to the workers. Only if forced to do so, it seems, by pressure from below. Thank you Professor Petras. To overcome food shortages and inflation Venezuela need only transfer all non-productive land to farmers’ co-operatives, and expropriate all corporations involved with hoarding. These steps are legal within the present constitution. To fiddle with term limits, five years before the next election, without having utilized either workers self mangement or government action to solve the problem of food, is criminally stupid, gives the lie to the rhetoric of “21 Century Socialism,” and tends to validate the charge of Bonapartism.
Land reform in Venezuela has been painfully slow. As of last May, the government claims to have only “resettled more than 15,000 families.”
(iht.com/articles/2007/05/17/america/17venezuela.php?page=1)
The surest way to precipitate a restoration of the old regime is to arouse popular expectations and then frustrate them. Will the Chavez regime institute land to the tiller and factories to the workers. Only if forced to do so, it seems, by pressure from below.

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