Support to Maintain the Sovereignty of Venezuela

"Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear - kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervour - with the cry of grave national emergency. Always, there has been some terrible evil at home, or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it." -- General Douglas MacArthur

We, the undersigned, stand united in our strong and absolute opposition to any interference by any country regarding the complete sovereignty of the nation of Venezuela and its Bolivarian Revolution, modeled after the revolution of Simon Bolivar to liberate all of South America.

We agree first that what Venezuela does is Venezuela's business. The fact that it sits on the world's fifth largest oil reserves should not, in any way, make Venezuela the business of anyone else.

Many of us have come to understand that the nationalization of Venezuela's
natural resources has denied huge revenues to multinational corporations. These corporations have exploited Venezuelan resources for decades, paying 0 to 1\% in royalties to the people who own the resources - the people of Venezuela. Because only the people of Venezuela have a rightful claim to their nation's resources, such nationalization is a moral and compassionate obligation on the part of President Hugo Chavez. For allowing the revenues of the people's oil to serve the needs of the people, he deserves the world's admiration. We understand that prior to his presidency, there was no free education. His government now uses oil profits to provide them with a free education. We understand that where there was no national health care, the Venezuelan government now provides health care to its 28 million citizens. This stands in stark contrast to the 40 million people in the United States who suffer without health insurance.

Moreover, the corporate media has made false claims that the Chavez government has been confiscating the private property of its citizens. The truth is that the Chavez administration has been developing a new economic system in which all people benefit. In his new system of a mixed economy, homeowners keep their homes; shopkeepers keep their shops. The changes affect the oligarchy and those lands that have lain barren and unused, passed from generation to generation, a symbol of hording wealth and depriving the poor and landless the opportunity for hope.

For these policies and actions of President Chavez, we extend our support and send our congratulations to the people of Venezuela for acquiring the ability to govern themselves.

The world has just witnessed the reckless, unprovoked U.S. war on the people of Iraq, motivated by greed. We stand firmly against that war and any possible determination by any country to rob Venezuela of its national resources - either by violence or by interference in its political process.

We share the beliefs of all in the world who value their right to self-determination. "Patria libre o morir." Let us never again interfere with the freedom and sovereignty of any nation that has not attacked our own. We believe, like Buckminster Fuller, that war is the ultimate tool of politics.

We demand that any countries eager to exploit Venezuela's wealth or countries that fear the success of Venezuela's new economic system keep to their own affairs.

VENEZUELA BELONGS ONLY TO THE VENEZUELANS, and they have overwhelmingly elected a president who is a leader to ALL the people, not to just a
privileged few.