Bravo for Venezuela
Erasmo Calzadilla
Concerning the nuclear accident in Japan, while some countries are vacillating on the issue of atomic energy, and others are holding on tight (France, the United States), Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has ordered the immediate halt of a project to construct a nuclear power plant in that country.
Chavez is an authoritarian president who to my understanding and that of others represents an obstacle more than a step forward on the path to Latin American and human emancipation. However, that doesn’t keep us from applauding his wise moves. The decision to stop construction on the nuclear power station deserves recognition and mention.
I think I would have turned pro-Chavez for a day if the resources dedicated to the exploitation of oil were rechanneled toward obtaining not only cleaner and greener energy but also to a model more compatible with a more human and less consumerist way of life.
“Atomic electricity” (similar to oil-generated electricity) cannot only be criticized for the ever-latent danger of radioactive escape, but also for reproducing and perpetuating a dynamic that is alienating, socially excluding, consumerist, elitist and exploitative. In short, it recreates the dynamics of the society that discovered and began using it.
God and Chavez’s circle of advisors know the real reason for this decision to stop construction on a nuclear plant, but — leaving all that aside — this time he hit the target.
Despite Marx, it seems that the human emancipation doesn’t come loaded on the truck of the development of the “productive forces.”
Hugo Chavez is wise to move away from Nuclear Power.
First of all he would be hounded by the Western Powers who would accuse him of secretly wanting Atomic Bombs as they do with Iran.
Even more of a reason is that Nuclear Power is unsafe, and all that is used to make the plant is radioactive forever.
Chavez is much better proceeding with clean alternative energy.
Erazmo: The statement “Chavez is an authoritarian president who . . . represents an obstacle more than a step forward on the path to Latin American and human emancipation” ignores the context in which the Bolivarian state, and all of Latin America, exists.
Taken at face value, your statement suggests that you’d prefer the pre-Chavez Venezuelan regime. If this is the case, then you are in harmony with the US government.
Even so, it is correct that solar, not oil or nuclear power is the viable basis for human progress.
President Chavez is absolutely right to halt anything to do with nuclear or atomic energy creation.
Having listened to a plethora of ‘experts’ on nuclear energy, nuclear reactors and how to manage this catastrophic situation in Japan, it’s becoming crystal clear that they are little more than theorists who have little more idea than anyone else when things go so horendously wrong to this magnitude.
Globally, we cannot even agree as to what area should be evacuated.
I live 150 kilometres from the nearest nuclear power plant and the thought of evacuating approximately 10 million people is unthinkable.