One of the things that really scares me about Venezuela

VHeadline commentarist Oscar Heck writes: Okay ... I have to write about this. One of the things that really scares me about Venezuela is that it may become like the USA. I say this for two reasons. First, because of greater income, almost every household now has a satellite dish or cable TV. Now, as never before, almost all Venezuelans are continuously watching US television, crime shows, rape, dismemberment, war movies, overt sex, etc., and tons of US-style television commercials advertising "things" ... turning the brains of people into violence-desensitized consumer-maniacal mush ... like in the USA. Secondly, since Venezuelan now has an elected National Assembly (the law-making body), and since most of the people who are involved in the National Assembly (AN) are from the traditional mid-to-upper class political mafias, some of the laws and programs adopted by the National Assembly and their related operational programs, and some of the issues being brought up as being of social importance are beginning to smell like made-in-the-USA garbage. But what scares me more, is what the AN is not doing.

• The AN (which is --ironically-- almost entirely pro-Chavez on a political level but not necessarily pro-Chavez on a personal or effective level) has not passed any laws aimed at immediately shutting down those Venezuelan media outlets which are clearly breaking every rule in the airwaves-concession book while sickening the minds of the people through disinformation and lies ...
• The AN is not addressing the issue of influx of sick US "culture" into Venezuela through the airwaves (television, cable and satellite) ...
• The AN is doing nothing to address the massive infestation of US-based fast-food (fat-food) chains, which are, as most people know, a grave danger to the health of people, especially of our youth.

My wife was in Caracas a few days ago and told me that she was sickened by what she saw ... more and more obese Venezuelans ... and many fat children ... something rarely ever seen in Venezuela before. She was also sickened by how many Hummers are now on the roads. Due to that giant US-based brainwashing mechanism, Hollywood, and because of the nature of human beings when under the continuous influence of television advertising, more and more Venezuelans now appear to want to become "Americans" ... everything in excess and in violence ... they now play violent games, listen to violent music, watch violent television, drive Hummers and gobble down giant portions of disease-causing pre-fabricated fat-food. It is saddening to see this happening.

But why does it bother me so much? What should I care?

Because this (below) is what Venezuela would end up looking like if it continues to follow the USA ... and if this happens, Venezuela will become yet another inhuman society living strangled under the auspices of the world's ruthless business and political elite and their criminal military and police enforcers ... and that would suck. The following information (quoted) comes from a website called prisonsucks.com.

"On December 31, 2005, there were 2,193,798 people in U.S. prisons and jails. The United States incarcerates a greater share of its population, 737 per 100,000 residents, than any other country on the planet. But when you break down the statistics you see that incarceration is not an equal opportunity punishment.

U.S. incarceration rates by race, June 30, 2006:

• Whites: 409 per 100,000
• Latinos: 1,038 per 100,000
• Blacks: 2,468 per 100,000

Gender is an important "filter" on the who goes to prison or jail, June 30, 2006:

• Females: 134 per 100,000
• Males: 1,384 per 100,000

Look at just the males by race, and the incarceration rates become even more frightening, June 30, 2006:

• White males: 736 per 100,000
• Latino males: 1,862 per 100,000
• Black males: 4,789 per 100,000

If you look at males aged 25-29 and by race, you can see what is going on even clearer, June 30, 2006:

• For White males ages 25-29: 1,685 per 100,000.
• For Latino males ages 25-29: 3,912 per 100,000.
• For Black males ages 25-29: 11,695 per 100,000. (That's 11.7% of Black men in their late 20s.)

Or you can make some international comparisons: South Africa under Apartheid was internationally condemned as a racist society.

• South Africa under apartheid (1993), Black males: 851 per 100,000
• U.S. under George Bush (2006), Black males: 4,789 per 100,000

What does it mean that the leader of the "free world" locks up its Black males at a rate 5.8 times higher than the most openly racist country in the world?"

Worse yet, since the vast majority of Venezuelans are poorer and of darker complexion (the 80%), what would Venezuelan incarceration statistics look like if it copied US laws?

It is important to note that many people in high places within the Venezuelan government and at the AN do indeed come from the whiter-skinned mid-to-upper class stratum of Venezuelan society ... and these are almost all USA wanabees, traveling regularly to Miami for weekend shopping sprees, vacationing and buying homes in Miami, sending their children to study at US universities and buying Hummers as status symbols. These people think that the USA is the best thing to hit the market. Since these people are within the Chavez government, and since these are the people who primarily propose, discuss, study and approve laws, and since these are the people who are in charge of government programs ... it scares the bejeezers out of me.

My wife and I have been discussing this for the last three years or so, when we began to notice some of the changes discussed above. We have been waiting to see if the AN or the people within the Chavez government are going to wake up and smell the rot ... and do something ... like pass laws prohibiting US-based fast-food chains and fast-food chains in general, prohibiting US-based television and movies and prohibiting the sales of violent video games ... but ... nothing has been done ... nothing at all ... and it is in their power to do it. If they don't even have the guts (or conscience) to shut down the Venezuelan violence-promoting anti-Chavez media outlets which are clearly breaking Venezuelan law (and contaminating the minds of people), how are they going to do anything about the tsunami of US-based products which are clearly detrimental to the physical, moral and mental health of the Venezuelan population?

If Venezuelan law makers and/or if the Chavez government doesn't do something to stop the US cancer which is invading Venezuelan society, Venezuela will end up, sooner or later, looking and acting just like the USA ... and that would be sad, very sad.

I would have to move out of Venezuela and go to Cuba ... probably the last bastion of humanistic culture left in our sickened western hemisphere.

Oscar Heck
oscarheck111@yahoo.com