DISPLACEMENT BEHAVIOR AND STOCKHOLM SYNDROME

Displacement behavior is what happens to a person who has an abusive boss but instead of standing up for himself he puts up with the boss�s unjust treatment. This man may come home and yell at his wife for no reason or kicks the dog that was not doing any thing wrong. He goes on and vents his frustration with his boss on his family and people that are actually on his side.  Stockholm syndrome is an extreme case of displacement where a person that has been kidnapped or tortured ends up siding with his/hers captors.

We seem to be in presence of these effects of displacement behavior when we look at the position of the US�s left.  Apparently the liberal thinkers have been abused and beaten up to such extend that they end up denouncing the problems that we have in this country as if they were happening in other countries in other countries.  In no other case this is more evident than with the Bolivarian revolution. While the rest of the world sees it as a beacon of hope for true freedom and liberties, the �liberal� of the US keep pining on the Bolivarian process the problems that they are having in the US.  In some cases their displacement is so intense that they end up taking the same position of the radical right wing that has beaten them up so badly without noticing what they are doing.

These liberals will argue vehemently that their accusations against Venezuela are not echoing the imperial line but based on their own opinions and views.  In fact they will argue �their� points as vehemently against the Bolivarian Revolution as Jos� Padilla defended the CIA operatives for torturing him for three years. In this essay I present some of the issues regarding freedoms, liberty and human rights in which the US has a lot more to worry than Venezuela but the pundits from the �left� far from addressing the issues at home, keep pointing those very issues as if they existed in Venezuela.

CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM IN VENEZUELAN: SPINNING PROBLEM

One recent event of this displacement behavior in the US left, was regarding the Constitutional reform that Chavez proposed at the end of 2006.  For instance, the reform included 69 articles out of which one talked about presidential term and term limits. The other 68 were about deep social and economic reform and even about national security. Unfortunately leftish pundits (with the only exception of Greg Palast) failed to understand that the constitutional reform hands the people far greater power to make their own decisions and rule their own lives than we have seen in any democracy, any time, any where. Instead, all that we hear is that the referendum was about term limits and handing Chavez �overreaching power�. This happens to be exactly what the corporate media says in Venezuela and it is sad that the independent media in the US was been unwittingly echoing the imperial lines.

Some of the analysts who read a bit past the issue of term limits understood the superficial progressive aspects of the reforms because they are similar to the issues that progressives in the US care about (gay rights, social security, etc) but the deeper elements of the reform they simply got freaked out about or did not understand them at all. They misconstrued the reform saying that it gave President Ch�vez the power to appoint people to positions that would normally be elected, suspend civil liberties indefinitely, and militarize parts of the country in case of need.

photo: isaccorp.org

Some of these seem to be psychological projections from concerned US citizens who have seen those very abuses applied to the US constitution and instead of worrying about them at home, they worry about them overseas. The suspensions of civil liberties (as in the Patriot Act) and appointment of people arbitrarily (as in a recess appointment) are problems that the US suffers day in and day out. But these suspensions do not exist in the constitutional reforms or in any other way in Venezuela.

The militarization of some areas is something that all governments, of any country, do in case of need.  Some of them do them right, some of them do them poorly.  We have a very recent one in New Orleans where the government militarized it (except not by our military but by private contractors) and gave the order: �shoot to kill� for looters.  I can translate it for you: �Death penalty for shoplifting, and without a trial.�  To what extent it was needed to militarize New Orleans and to "shoot to kill" is a subject of another discussion. However, militarization of a region within a country is not something unheard of and most governments do it whether the constitutions explicitly gives them that right or not. It so happens that Chavez is a constitutionalist. He does not do things outside the constitution, thus the need to include it.

Militarization: As for the need for Venezuela to militarize a region, let�s recall that Venezuela shares a very long border with Colombia, which has been in a de facto civil war for almost 50 years. Colombia�s civil war is largely sponsored by drug money and by US tax payers dollars (that is what Plan Colombia is all about). Any one who is familiar with the recent history of Latin American knows about the atrocities the right-wing paramilitaries have committed in Colombia. They also know about the brutality that the Contras unleashed in Central America during the 70s and 80s and how important it is to prevent cross-border violence.

There has been plenty of evidence of paramilitaries coming across the border tying to unleash violence and chaos in the Venezuela (part of the plan of ingovernability that the US has implemented to topple other presidents). I can see a very clear need to militarize some regions to prevent the paramilitary from developing strongholds in some areas, as they have done in Colombia. When analysts read this as Chavez taking too much power they are simply ignoring important facts of Venezuela�s geopolitical situation. In fact, if the U.S. people, liberals in particular, did a better job of keeping their government within the rule of law, other countries would not need much militarization or expenditures in weapons and defense.

Removing term limits: The main reason that most of us would like to remove limits for the presidents to run continuously in Venezuela(and make no mistake, if this referendum had been about removal of term limits it would have passed with a landslide) is because of the imminent threat of the U.S. empire. Venezuela has the largest oil reserves of the world (about 6 times that of Saudi Arabia) and we know that the empire is intent on taking it. We know we are going to be under constant attacks from the CIA and their minions to take it one way or the other.

While there are about two dozen politicians that could be as good a president (or perhaps better) than Chavez, Chavez is the only one who has the charisma to unite the country monolithically against an imperial aggression. In 2002 there was a coup in the country and it was reverted due to a popular uprising. The people came out by the millions, against brutal repression, and demanded Chavez to be brought back. People did not challenge the bullets and the repression just because they thought that Chavez was a good president. They did not come out just to defend a sound government of social possibilities and good progressive philosophy. They came out risking it all because they love Chavez. If the president had been some one as good on the issues as Chavez, but with less charisma than him, there is a good chance that the coup would have stuck.

Simply put, there are between 5 to 7 million Venezuelans that are willing to die in the trenches if they thought they were the last line of defense between the US Marines and Chavez. Chavez provides the country with the only vaccine that has proved to endure imperial attacks.  Why would we risk our precious revolution to appease the criticism of some US liberals that (thinking UScentrically) expect that every country should limit the number of terms for a president; while many developed countries like UK, France, Germany, Italy just to mention some, do not have term limits?  Furthermore, if these US liberals did a better job at restraining their own government it would not be so important for the Venezuelans to have Chavez in office all the time. In fact, if liberals in the US did a better job, there are many other problems in international politics that simply would not exist.

ACCUMULATION OF POWER?

Among the propaganda we heard against Chavez starting from Colin Powell, but spread by analysts from media outlets, was that Chavez was consolidating power. Some of them even condone it, saying that it may be necessary in order to make some important social changes. They did not seem to realize that the so-called consolidation of power did not exist in Venezuela. Interestingly power-consolidation was happening in the US where the theory of the Unitary executive was gaining strength. 

Things like winning elections over and over, were construed as if President Ch�vez was consolidating power. People liked his proposal and voted for him over and over. It resulted in a congress that was greatly pro-Chavez. In the US media, this was spun as Chavez accumulating power because there was no dissent or opposition. There was plenty of dissent, just not in elected offices because they did not have popular support to win elected posts. There was plenty of opposition in the corporate media but they did not have any representation in the population.

As far as accumulation of power goes, it is a lot more difficult to accomplish in Venezuela than in any other country I know.  It so happens that the branches of government in Venezuela are more independent than the ones in the US since the president does not name or appoint any one, not in the supreme court, Attorney General or anybody else; it is all the congress�s doing (Named National Assembly in Venezuela) without any input from the president. The president of Venezuela doesn't even have power to approve or veto legislation! ]On top of this, we have two other branches (totaling 5 branches): (1) The Ethical Branch of the Republic and (2) the Electoral Branch.  The Ethical Branch of the Republic is a complex branch that unites the function of the Attorney General and the Ombudsman.  It is independent from the executive branch moreso than the U.S. Supreme Court, because the President has no role in their appointments. The Electoral Branch is another division of the government that we can only dream of in the US. It is an independent branch of the federal government that organizes elections (and referendums) all across the country with a pristine, fool prove system that offers complete privacy for the votes, paper trails, and guarantee for international observers oversight in every step of the way. Accumulating power is simply not possible within Venezuelan law. Once again we see displacement behavior by the pundits of the left that instead of complaining about the accumulation of power by the U.S. Executive, divert their attention and displace their worries towards Venezuela.

COMPARING PRESIDENTS AND COMPARING REGIMES

The attachment of Chavez to the constitution is unprecedented in the country and exemplary in the world. Chavez suffered a coup d'�tat in 2002. We all saw it. The authors of the coup claimed that they only took power because Chavez was �missing�. There was �a vacuum of power� they argued. The Attorney General charged them with treason and the supreme court (that was still run by the old corrupt judges) ruled that their actions were �pregnant with good intentions� and left them off the hook. How many presidents would have sat on their hands and watch the coup makers (who tried to kill him) go back to the streets to rally their opposition and continue working on another maneuver to topple him (8 months later with the oil strike)? This compares favorably not only with a tyrannical Bush, but with any president.

Venezuela is the only country in the world that has an article in its constitution that gives the power to remove the president by referendum. This is the constitution that the people approved during Chavez�s presidency and that he supports wholeheartedly. Which president would include a method for the people to get rid the president unless it is someone who really believes in democracy?

DEMOCRACY IN THE US VS IN VENEZUELA

photo: fbi.gov

Patriot Act: The worries of the US liberals about Venezuelan democracy when their own system is falling apart shows amazing capacity of displacement behavior. We know what the patriot act is, or how it was approved, and what it means for democracy and civil liberties. We just saw how a change for the constitution in Venezuela was presented to the whole nation, was debated for several months both in the congress and in the streets and finally went through referendum of the whole country. How does it compare with a change in the law in the US such as the Patriot Act that gives the president �overreaching powers� that was approved by a handful of people (100 of the 300 million) without reading it?

War in Iraq

photo:adoption.com

Furthermore, we just saw in the November, 2006 elections in the US that the people mandated the end of the war in Iraq. There is no other way to interpret the result of that election. Neither the congress or the executive have paid any attention to this demand. How is that democratic? Who needs more democracy - a country that goes to elections all the time about all the issues and where elections are clear and transparent, or a country where the elections are few and far in between, where the result of the elections are not transparent, where the results are not respected, and where the mandate of the electorate is ignored?

It is true that Bush has really lowered the bar regarding law and democracy but the Venezuelan democracy compares favorably with the US democracy simply by looking at the law itself, not only at how it is applied. 

To use an example, consider a person who wants to pass a law (say, a moratorium on purchases of guns). This person has to get the ear of a congressman, the congressman would bring it to the floor if he likes it. On a good day, the House could appoint a committee to discuss it, they would discuss it for any amount of time, if they like it they will bring it to a vote in the house.  If it passes, it goes to the senate for a similar process, if it passes goes to the president who has the right to veto it. In that case, it would go back to the congress for another vote. If it gets 66% of the votes in both houses, it becomes law but even then, the president has the right to attach a signing statement saying what he thinks of it and pretty much has the right to bypass the validity of the law if he chooses. It is true that Bush has used far more signing statements than any other president but the whole process also gives tremendous power to all these elected officials and hardly any to the people. 

Let�s consider the same scenario in Venezuela. Any group of citizens can ask for a vote to make any motion into law. They only need 5% of the electorate (currently 800K people) to ask for a referendum. If they gather all the signatures for the petition, it goes to a vote within 30 days in a nationwide referendum organized by the Electoral Branch of the government.  If this passes, the motion becomes law without any elected official having any power to veto or by-pass it.  If it is not clear that this is more democratic than the US, we need to revise the very concept of democracy.

If we look at the bigger picture, we can consider how this lack of democracy affects the people of the US. We can see that we have millions of US citizens that have lost their houses and life savings due to lack of health insurance, or they lost their jobs because of the free trade agreements, or the rural people in Appalachian that suffer cancer and asthma epidemics and displacement because of pollution produce by mountain top removal. These are all consequences of policies of the country that are decided by elected officials in the pockets of big corporations.

photo: photographyblog.com

Why don�t the US people have the right to put an end to these practices? A number of South American countries have put to a popular vote whether or not they want to join the free trade agreement with the US. Why cannot the US citizens exercise the same right?  Please notice that the problems I am mentioning are not from the strict domain of Bush's administration. These are systemic corruptions of the US democracy that does not allow poor people to have a voice. When the US �left� cries foul play against Venezuela on baseless ground while at the same time ignores these atrocities happening in their own land it can only be compared with kicking your loving dog because you are unable to stand up to your boss.

The sad thing is that many of these people, who lost jobs to free trade, that lost their houses to health care debts, or whose children get sick because of the pollution produced by coal operations, will (sickeningly) agree with the notion that they have the best democracy in the world and that there is nothing wrong with their system. It seems like the people, as well as the �liberal� pundits, have been brain-washed into believing that their system is perfect and there is nothing better than what they have. They do not seem to realize that they are subjects (as opposed to citizens) of the corporations that rule the country via their elected representatives. By failing to denounce the problems of the system, the �liberal pundits� are currupting the meaning of real democracy. By repeating the imperial line: �Venezuela is the one that has the problem because it is not like us,� media sources under the pretense that they are from the left, confuse the lay person. This prevents the people from seeking a real analysis of the facts.

There is an underlying difference between the democracy in Venezuela and the one in the US. The Venezuelan process is a new, progressive system, that places as its first priority the well-being of the people. In contrast, the people the US have been hoodwinked for more than 200 hundred years under the soft tyranny of representative democracy. In fact this is quite the issue at the heart of difference between both democracies.

REPRESENTATIVE VS PARTICIPATIVE DEMOCRACY

Most of these aspects of the reform that confused some people and scared others has to do with the explosion of the popular power.  The Venezuelan constitution gives the local community unprecedented power to decide over their own futures, make their own policies and rule their own destinies, moreso than we have seen in any democracy any where any time.  Unfortunately the wording of some articles in the 1998 constitution handicap the full extent to which they can be applied and the reforms have more effective versions of the same articles. The intent of many articles of the reform was to do away once and for all with representative democracy. CAREFUL! Notice that I did not say �to do away with democracy� just with "representative democracy". The real spirit behind the reform has with strengthening participative democracy.

For most people in the US participative democracy only means getting involved in politics, writing to the elected officials or even running for office. All that is fine and well but it still has the same limitations that we have with representative democracy.  Participating actively in representative democracy does not make it Participative Democracy. In the representative democracy the people write a blank check to an elected official and the elected official does what he or she wants to do with it, only to ask for another blank check in the next election (thanks to Marcelo Larrea for the image). Participative Democracy, in the sense of the Venezuelan constitution and its reform, is a very different political system.

For example, let�s consider Italy before the Iraq war. The Italian people were monolithically against the invasion. Something around 90% of the Italians opposed the invasion. There were demonstrations of millions of people in many cities in Italy (4 million in Rome alone). You would say that those people were involved. They let their elected officials know what they thought and asked very vociferously not to join invasion. We know what happened: Berlusconi bowed to Bush, bowed to the big oil corporations and ignored the request of their constituents and still used their tax payers� Euros, to send their young men and women to a war that the country did not approve. That is representative democracy for you.

If the Italian people had had a participative democracy there would have been a vote where the people could make a binding decision on the future of their country.  Berlusconi would not have had the power to disobey his people the way he did. Sure he lost the following elections but after a full dreadful invasion, millions of Euros, and many lives were lost. In a participative democracy the elected official is not "the decider," they are more like "spokesperson" of the will of the people. The people are the ones making the decisions. 

The spirit of the system was best captured by subComandante Marcos (Zapatista leader in Mexico) saying that elected officials should: "govern by obeying." To listen to the will of the people is also possible in  representative democracy if the leader wants to be  a good leader, (this is the reason Poll Listeners of the likes of Bill Clinton come across as better leaders) but only the participative democracy offers a fail-proof system where we do not depend on landing a good president. If the president is good, better, but if not, the people can make him/her do the right thing, if s/he won�t listen the people can get rid of them.

Representative democracy in the US has always carried the undisclosed assumption that the person we elect knows more about what�s best for the people because s/he is better educated, better informed. This is perhaps an undesirable consequence of the elitist origin of the revolution for the US independence.  Surprisingly this notion continues unchallenged despite the fact that our best president in recent history was a peanut farmer!  The goal of the representative democracy, and at the core of the Chavez proposal, is to hand this power to the people.  Thus the emphasis on education and debate that the government impulses.

This is the system currently in place in Venezuela in central government. The reform contained explicit language for the local communities to take this kind of power not only at major events but in every decision of their every day life. Clearly, running their local communities as active citizens making the important decisions takes time and demand dedication in getting informed about the issues in order to make the right decisions. In representative democracies we trust the elected officials (who in turn trust the lobbyists) to find out the information and make the right decisions for us. In the participative democracy this is everybody�s job to find out, to discuss and debate in communal councils before they make the important decisions.

Among the many manipulations of the reform, it was said that it would take away power from elected officials and give it to Chavez.  While the first part is true and the traditional elected officials (congress members, major, governors etc) would lose a lot of power, this power does not go to the central government.  It goes straight to the local people at the local communities that now would have control of their own life and destiny. No wonder why many "pro Chavez", "leftish" politicians turned against the reform!!

The new reform included cutting the working hours to 6 hours a day. Many people interpreted this as "sugar coating the reform" to entice workers to approve the reform in order to have less working hours. What cutting the working day to 6 hours is all about is giving the people the possibility to get involved in the running of their communities. Understandably, to run your community you need to prepare yourself, learn what is going on, study, and discuss all the options if you are going to make your own decision. This was the reason behind the 6-hour day - to give the workers time to get involved in running their policies and their communities. US analysts of the reform, even in the left, always misconstrued it as a way to bribe the poor to accept the "scary� political change.

From the point of view of environmental conservation, to give all the power to the well-informed local people is best since they know how to choose what is best for their own people and their own future. The future of the local community is always tied up to the future of the environment. They will not let a corporation come over and take up the resources leaving behind misery and destroyed habitat because that is the habitat they will need for themselves, their kids and grandkids. The decision in the hands of the local and well-informed people is as good as we can hope for conservation at every level.

THE TRULY SCARY PART OF THE REFORM

Now, I must confess that there is a part of reform that even scares me a little. I am not worried about the possibility that Chavez might take too much power because there are so many checks and balances that it is impossible.  What I am a bit worried about is the feasibility of a country composed of thousands and thousands of small communities each one ruling their own destiny in their own directions. Is that any longer one country? Is it possible to run a country with such a structure?  Will it be very easily divided by the empire to produce conflict between neighboring communities? These are all doubts and worries that I have about the new system and I do not know the answer to them.  Again, this comes to show the complete faith that Chavez has in democracy and his true belief that the will of the people should be paramount.  I wish the discussion and objection to the reform had dealt with this subjects, instead of lies and fabrications, because regardless of the outcome, this debate would yield productive insights. Yet, we did not hear any of this in the criticism of the reform. 

OTHER ESSAYS BY JES�S A. RIVAS

� Copyright 2008 by AxisofLogic.com

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The Author

Jes�s A. Rivas is a biologist from the Universidad Central de Venezuela. His research interests include natural history, ethology, and conservation. He has been working for a number of years in the study of behavioral ecology and conservation of large tropical reptiles of the llanos of Venezuela which is his homeland. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee (Laboratory of Reptile Ethology). He taught for one year at Boston University, made TV documentaries for National Geographic Television as a field correspondent.  He is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Math and Natural Sciences at Somerset Community College in Somerset, KY. He is also a prolific writer on social and political matters. He is a contributing columnist for the Lexington Herald (www.kentucky.com) and also publishes frequently in Spanish at www.aporrea.org.

Read more about Jes�s interesting background

He can be reached at: jesus@anacondas.org. Visit his website!
You can contact the author directly at jesus@anacondas.org

OTHER ESSAYS BY JES�S A. RIVAS

Rivas, J. A., 2007, What is the path to Socialism Revolution or Evolution?: The Axis of Logic, July

Rivas, J. A., 2007, Environmental Conservation and Socialism. A Conservationist Manifesto for the Venezuela's revolution: The Axis of Logic, July

Rivas, J. A., 2007, What is wrong with Pain Killers, NPR, the Democractic Party and Conservation Biologists?: The Axis of Logic, October

Rivas, J. A. (2007). "The immigration problem: What problem? Whose problem?" The Axis of Logic August.

Rivas, J. A., 2006, Understanding the minds of the neocons: Oil wars,  attacks on the Venezuelan revolution and the corruption of US democracy: Vheadlines

Rivas, J. A. 2005.  Comparing Ecuador and Venezuela: Similar Opposition, Very Different Governments.  Venezuelanalysis April