E. Golinger's Venezuela: The Imperfect Revolution. An imaginary conversation.

Hello, Eva. I read your book "The Chavez Code", and I liked it very much. I also read the English edition of El Correo del Orinoco every Friday. I'm a follower from your twitter account (@evagolinger). That's how I found out about the post from May the 24th in your blog and read it.

While reading it, I felt like it was a conversation, because I was responding directly to a lot of your statements (to myself), so that after finishing the reading I tweeted the following:

I'll write a post based on this.I hope she reads it RT @evagolinger:Venezuela:The Imperfect Revolution,by Eva Golinger http://bit.ly/arZeEd

And here that post is, written like an imaginary conversation based on the entire text of your post. I repeat: I hope you read it.

@evagolinger: If you come to Venezuela with glistening eyes, expecting to see the revolution of a romantic and passionate novel, don’t be disappointed when the complexities of reality burst your bubble. While revolution does withhold a sense of romanticism, it’s also full of human error and the grit of everyday life in a society – a nation – undertaking the difficult and tumultuous process of total transformation.

Nothing is perfect here, in the country sitting on the world’s largest oil reserves. But everything is fascinating and intriguing, and the changes from past to present become more visible and tangible every day.

@t6435bm: Well I've been living here in Venezuela all my life. We don't have the world's largest oil reserves. We are actually number 7. And I'll tell you my opinion about the changes brought by the Revolution at the end of our conversation. Go on.

@evagolinger: After 100 years of abandonment, as President Hugo Chavez puts it, the Venezuelan people have awoken and begun the gargantuan task of taking power and building a system of social and economic justice.

@t6435bm: Well, the only way to visualize the changes from past to present is trying to take a look at the past. For that purpose we got the usual documentary means: newspapers, books, audiovisual material... Fortunately a part of them is already available in the internet. If we look at the past before 1998, or, "as President Hugo Chavez puts it", 100 years back to 1910, we can look back at a century of profound transformations which occurred before 1998, like these:

• In 1904, Venezuela had a population of 2,689,539 including around 300,000 indians. In Caracas there were only around 80,000 people! Today we are a nation with a population of almost 30,000,000 people (there has been no real census since 1990, we had been making one census about every 10 years since 1873).
• So, in 1904, more than 90% of the Venezuelan population were scattered in a big rural country, coming out of a century of civil wars (from independence to the last "revolution" in 1899), with little education (literacy rate around 34%), a lot of chronic diseases and almost no roads or infrastructure. In 2010, almost 90% of the population live in urban areas, an there is a lot of infrastructure, the most of which was built before 1998. In 1990, our literacy rate was about 94%.
• In 1904 we Venezuelans were a few million people living on an extensive tropical country, producing food all year long and without hard winters. In 1930, Venezuela finished paying all her external debts corresponding to her first 100 years of existence as a Republic - creditors had been fundamentally English, German and French. That was a fine celebration of her first century as a Republic. And how was that possible?
• In 1928, Venezuela moved into second place behind the US among the world's oil-producing countries. In other words, her production had become fabulous in a list which included such fabled producers as the Crimean fields of Russia, the spectacular limestone fields of Mexico and the seemingly limitless reservoirs of the Middle East waiting to enter flush production in Iraq and Iran. The first oil concession, a 250 acre site, in 1878 was granted to Venezuelans in the Andean foothills near Rubio, on and around a surface manifestation or seepage of oil. In 1884, a company named Petrolera del Tachira was established. It was not until 1917 that foreign enterprise and capital gave Venezuela a true oil industry marked by intensive drilling using heavy mechanical equipment., The result were 100,000 barrels for that year. In 1975 all infrastructure built since 1917 by foreign capital was nationalized and became a state owned industry.
• Our GDP in 1920 was 1,793 mil. (599 per capita), in 1950 19,025 mil. (3,778 per capita), in 1975 76,194 mil. (6,084 per capita) Bs. (base year: 1968). In the 1970's there was the "great Venezuela". The government was investing in all kinds of industries. A project for development around the mining industry in Guayana was in course, for example, since the 1940's.
• All that changed in the 1980's and 1990's. Somehow the governments managed to mess the economy so much, that although we were still producing oil, the prices were low and our debts had become unplayable (like at the end of the 19th century), and everything that was bought, built and owned by the State in recent decades was unsustainable. The GDP had fallen to a 4,914 Bs. of 1968 per capita in 1995.

(Most of the information in this quick survey comes from http://www.gerenciasocial.org.ve/, http://dewardt.net/dimebook/Venezuela.pdf, http://de.scientificcommons.org/9113747 and of course, the Wikipedia).

So I don't see "100 years of abandonment". I see, after a 19th century of civil war, a 20th century of unusual economic growth, based on oil production, that provided us most of the infrastructure we have today and allowed the governments to care - in general - for health and education of a rapidly growing population; but somehow the resources were mismanaged, we acquired a new, and still today ever growing foreign debt and have suffered a chronic economic crisis since the 1980's.

I see no improvements on that situation in the first decade of the 21st century, although the oil prices have been high: the inequality of income distribution (measured by the Gini coefficient) has been almost the same since 1962 (around 0.47). For 2009 it was 0.49, also, that one is not improving. On the contrary.

Our foreign debt for the first quarter of 2010 was of more than 60,000 million US dollars. In 1998 it was around 20,000 million dollars...

@evagolinger: But it’s easier said than done in a culture embedded with corrupt values, resulting from the nation’s vast oil wealth, combined with an overall feeling of entitlement.

The bureaucracy is massive and often intimidating, as the people, including the President himself, struggle to erradicate it every day, and replace it with a more horizontal political and economic model.
@t6435bm: It's very difficult to talk about corruption. But the opportunities for corrupt people have been increased in the last 11 years. There are so many more uncontrolled government money outlets today than in 1998, that a lot of people more are becoming rich with government money everyday, not only in Venezuela, but abroad! Just look at the commerce-chain that emerged around the smuggling of imported PDVAL/Mercal-food into Colombia and (sometimes then) Ecuador and Peru. That kind of new corruption comes directly from the Revolution and its politics, not from the past, and is extremely negative for the country, contradicting everything the Revolution preaches!

And bureaucracy? Bureaucracy has considerably increased in this government! In 1998 there were 16 ministries and approximately 1,400,000 public employees. Today, there are 26 ministries (the number changes very frequently, sometimes there are more, sometimes less) and more than 2,400,000 public employees! I like to see it this way. In 1998 we had three public employees for every 50 Venezuelans. Now we have four public employees for every 50 Venezuelans. And each new Minister (there has been more than hundred changes of ministers in the last 11 years) "moves" its bureaucracy creating more bureaucracy!

There are so many uncontrolled agencies and government programs that are appearing and disappearing almost every day, including the misión @chavezcandanga - with its alleged 200 employees and the international office of Zelaya in Petrocaribe, i don't think he was hired alone... I think it's not possible to know how many public employees there currently are.

@evagolinger: From the outside, it’s easy to criticize Venezuela. Inflation is high, the economy is in a difficult place, although growing, and relations with countries such as Russia, China and Iran are often painful for foreigners to comprehend. Media portrays much of the power in the nation as concentrated in the hands of one man, Hugo Chavez, and rarely highlights the thousands of positive achievements and successes his government has obtained during the past ten years. Distortion and manipulation reign amongst international public opinion regarding human rights, freedom of expression and political views opposing those of President Chavez, and few media outlets portray a balanced vision of Venezuela today.

@t6435bm: I think it's easier to praise the Revolution from the outside, not to criticize it. It's easier to criticize the Revolution from the inside! The Venezuelans are the ones suffering from inflation and the difficult economy. The Venezuelans are the ones suffering from the street violence, and the worn relations with relatives and friends because of the polarization of politics. A lot of Venezuelans cannot comprehend the kind of relations undertaken with countries such as Belarus, Russia, China and Iran, especially considering that Colombia and the US are our traditional commercial partners, still sustaining an important part of our economy. A very important part of our income in dollars comes from the selling of our oil to US clients. Maybe there is distortion and manipulation in the international public opinion, but, especially since 2003, the government has copied the worst methods of the corporate media and is manipulating the domestic public opinion highlighting and exaggerating, even creating, government's achievements throughout the State owned media.

@evagolinger: While it’s true that there is awful inflation in Venezuela, much of it has been caused by business owners, large-scale private distributors and producers, import-exporters and the economic elite that seek to destabilize and overthrow the Chavez administration.

@t6435bm: That was maybe partially true in 2002-2003. But since then, in the last seven years, the government has had complete freedom of action. The government has created or encouraged new business owners, large-scale private distributors, import-exporters, also a new economic elite (from which Arneé Chacón, the brother of Jessie Chacón, has been part, for example)! And most of these problems come from them!

@evagolinger: They sell dollars on the black market at pumped up rates and speculate and hike the prices of regular consumer products to provoke panic and desperation among the public, all with the goal of forcing Chavez’s ouster.

@t6453bm: The most of the current economic situation is caused by the kind of economic actions the government has applied in said 7 years. The acquisitions of industries and lands which were productive and aren't productive anymore, the gigantic subsidies for imported food and the non-sustainable way of distributing and selling it. All the problems related to the exchange rate disaster are caused by a bad handling of the exchange market, distorted by the government itself and its generation of bonds (for example).

@evagolinger: And despite ongoing economic sabotage, the economy has still grown substantially in comparison to other nations in the region. In fact, according to the neoliberal International Monetary Fund (IMF), Venezuela is the only South American nation to forecast economic growth this year.

@t6435bm: I don't see such a forecast here.

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/reo/2009/WHD/eng/wreo1009.pdf On the contrary. I see a forecast for a negative growth of 0.4% for Venezuela in 2010, and positive growth for all other countries in South America (Brazil 3.5%; Chile 4.0%). Just yesterday the BCV announced a decrease of 5,2% in Venezuela's GDP for the first quarter of 2010!

@evagolinger: How do you build a socialist revolution in an oil economy? It’s not easy. The Chavez government promotes a green agenda, but at the same time, the streets of Caracas – the capital – are still littered with stinky garbage and the air is contaiminated with black smoke emissions from cars and make-shift buses that go uncontrolled and unregulated. Part of the problem is government regulation, but most of the problem is social consciousness. Revolution is impossible if the people aren’t on board.
@t6435bm: Still littered? The city of Caracas grew from a small town with red roofs in the 1940's (pictures of the time show a very clean and pretty town) to an oil metropole in the 1970's-1980's. Today there are more people living in the city, and the services are the same, or less, than in the 1980's and the slums have been growing without control since 1958. That's the problem. I don't think the Revolution is planning the urbanism of the future. It's not thinking about "better cities, better life". You yourself said that our proposal for the Expo in Shanghai is an alternative, that there can be no clean and enjoyable cities while capitalism exists. The alternative would be, then, the end of capitalism. I ask myself why there are so many comfortable cities in capitalist countries.

@evagolinger: So, the government gives out millions of free, cold-energy saving lightbulbs, to replace the over-consuming yellow ones, and programs are underway to allow a free trade-in of diesel consuming cars for new natural gas vehicles. The Chavez administration is funding solar energy exploration and research institutes, building wind energy units along the northern Caribbean coast and has implemented a major environmental conservation campaign nationwide. Part of this incredible effort resulted from a horrific six-month long drought that pushed the nation to energy and water rationing, causing countrywide blackouts that weren’t well received. Ironically, one of the world’s largest oil producers is more than 70% dependent on hydroelectric power for internal energy consumption, thanks to the governments past, which only were interested in selling the oil abroad and not using it to improve the lives of their own citizens.
@t6435bm: Hydroelectric power is green, isn't it?

There is a system of national parks and an institute for their administration and conservation since the 1940's. That system is in a very bad shape today, and that's part of the reason why there were so many fires in the last drought. The Revolution has a very important responsibility in that aspect.

There is a national interconnected power system in Venezuela, built in the second half of the 20th century (since the 1960's until the beginning of the 1980's; Guri is one of the world's largest hydroelectric plants), which interconnects the power generation and guarantees the power supply for the whole country. This was a fine piece of infrastructure.

But it hasn't received appropriate maintenance since the last half of the 1980's, especially in the last decade. That, together with the drought and the increased power consumption (because of the population growth), has caused the electrical problems of this year in Caracas. In the rest of the country there have been electrical blackouts since years.

In the case of Caracas, there were investment plans in 1998 which were not executed because of the selling of La Electricidad de Caracas, a Venezuelan private owned company, to the American corporation AES , with approval by the Chavez administration in 2000.

The company was nationalized in 2008, to the economical satisfaction of the American US-Corporation.

I would like to know about the planning of all that "green power generation". Where is it planned? How much MW are planned? When should all those new generation alternatives will be effectively working? What are the amounts of the investments?

All I know about is the approval of a big amount of government money to buy a big amount of dirty small/medium-size diesel thermoelectric generation plants, bought from Brazilian/European/American/Chinese companies through Cuba, being sold and installed all over the country, and the government asking big and small sized commerces and industries, . including shopping malls!, to buy their own dirty generation plants!

POWER TO THE PEOPLE

@evagolinger: The foremost achievement of the Bolivarian Revolution, as it is called in Venezuela, taking the namesake of liberator Simon Bolivar, has been the inclusion of a mass majority, previously excluded and invisible, in the nation’s politics and economic decisions.

@t6435bm: Since the beginning of the 20th century, Venezuela has advanced in terms of inclusion. Universal suffrage. Vote for women. Opportunities for everybody (Hugo Chávez himself is an example for a poor boy who was given the opportunity to make a career in the military). The 1999 Constitution was a new step in the right direction, but the structure being built by the Revolution doesn't follow its guidelines. It follows another Political Agenda.

@evagolinger: What does this mean? It means that today, millions of Venezuelans have a visible identity and role in nation-making. It means that community members – without regard to class, education or status – are actively encouraged to participate in policy decisions on local and even national matters. Community members, organized in councils, make decisions on how local resources are allocated. They decide if monies are spent on schools, roads, water systems, transportation or housing.

@t6435bm: This visibility is an illusion. I see it that way, because of lack of effective results. Without appropriate national and regional planning, made with the appropriate technical expertise, this decision-making on how to allocate local resources isn't effectively producing feasible, concrete results. I would like to know about concrete projects where the government money directly given to the Community Councils produced the from the Community expected results. On the contrary, I've heard of a lot of problems because of corruption at the Community-Councils level. Houses and roads which weren't built. Compromise with the United Socialist Party of Venezuela for guaranteeing the money. I think these Community Councils (by the way, these Community Councils or the "popular power" they supposedly represent, aren't mentioned in the 1999 Constitution) have been "designed" as a mean of political control of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, and therefore of the President, more than as a mean of empowering the communities for its own good.

@evagolinger: They have oversight of spending, can determine if projects are advancing adequately, and even can determine where the workforce should come from; i.e. local workers vs. outside contractors. In essence, this is a true example of an empowered people – or how power is transferred from a “government” to the people.

@t6435bm: As I said. Show me working examples of all this. The Community Councils exist since April 10th, 2006. Also, 4 years and counting.

@evagolinger: For the first time in Venezuela’s history, every voice is valued, every voice has the possibility of being heard. And because of this, people actually want to participate. Community media outlets have sprung up by the hundreds, after previously being illegal and shunned by prior governments. New newspapers, magazines, radio programs and even television shows reflect a reality and color of Venezuela that formerly, the elite chose to ignore and exclude.

@t6435bm: Community Media is a great idea. I completely agree. All people are being given the opportunity to build their own media outlets in their communities, so they can freely express their reality. But the great idea has been distorted in the last years, and now there is an ideological misuse of it. The Revolution conceives the Community Media as political outlets for its own ideological propaganda!

These new newspapers, magazines, radio programs an even television shows don't complement the traditional Media for a more democratic Venezuela. Since at least 2008, they are effectively part of the national system of public media, and that system is effectively becoming a propaganda machine for the Revolution! This doesn't look to me like a democratization of the press anymore! It looks like the construction of a totalitarian new media reality for Venezuela!

@evagolinger: Still, a majority of mass media remains in the hands of a powerful economic elite that uses its capacity to distort and manipulate reality and promote ongoing attempts to undermine the Chavez government. Lest we not forget the mass media’s role in the April 2002 coup d’etat that briefly ousted President Chavez from power, and a subsequent economic sabotage in December of that same year, that imposed a media blackout on information nationwide.

@t6435bm: That's true. The 2002 Coup d'etat and the economic sabotage the next year were mainly directed by the most powerful private media. But that was 7 years ago. The times have changed. Right now, the private media (not all of it is owned by a powerful economic elite) still represents the opinion of an important part of the people of this country. And their continued existence guarantees democracy. So simple is that. The non renewal of the license for RCTV was a sentence of death for a company which had a big tradition in the production of entertainment in our country, and it was a completely political conditioned action, masked as a legitimate legal action. Why mask it?
@evagolinger: Despite claims by private media outlets alleging violations of freedom of expression, Venezuela remains a nation with one of the world’s most thriving free and independent press. Here, almost anything goes, even plots and plans to kill the President or bring the nation’s economy to its knees; all broadcast live on television, radio, or in print.
@t6435bm: Despite these claims of a thriving free and independent press, the government is effectively deaf to the voices of the private media. It even prohibited some specific media direct entrance to official news events or the possibility of transmitting live. The media are obliged to transmit hours of presidential events which aren't necessarily related to important national topics. And the national system of public media has turn into a propaganda machine for the United Socialist Party of Venezuela or the president himself. I'll give you a good example of what has happened to the thriving free press: how was the Introduction of the TV-Show "La Hojilla" five years ago? A little shaving razor chased the logos of 4 TV-Channels: Televen, Venevisión, Radio Caracas and Globovision, meaning that this TV-Show was unmasking manipulations of these 4 private media. How is the introduction today? Pictures of the revolution! Only one uncomfortable TV-channel remains, which must be attacked by La Hojilla: Globovisión. One disappeared, the other two have complained with the easy, non-too-criticizing way of journalism.
@evagolinger: The contradictions of building a socialist revolution in a capitalist world are evident here every day. The same self-proclaimed revolutionary, bearing a red shirt, wants to buy your dollars on the black market at an elevated rate. You can get killed in the streets of Caracas for a Blackberry; don’t even think of whipping out an iPhone in public.

@t6435bm: Doesn't that mean that the Revolution isn't working?

@evagolinger: Even President Chavez himself now fashions a Blackberry to keep his Twitter account up to date. Chavez has “politicized” Twitter, and turned it into a social tool. His account, the most followed in Venezuela, receives thousands of requests and messages daily for everything from jobs, to housing to complaints about bureaucracy and inefficient governance. He even set up a special team of 200 people dedicated to processing the tweets, and he himself responds to as many as he can. Ironically, Chavez has found a way to reconnect with his people in a virtual world.

@t6435bm: In 1999 and 2000, a lot of little scraps of paper, and letters, came to Miraflores directly. The people even directly put little messages in the pockets of the President, with requests for jobs, housing or complains about bureaucracy and inefficient governance. There were functionaries in charge of processing all that messages, and that's allegedly why "Aló Presidente" was created, 11 years ago: to let the people make a direct contact with the President.

So these "politicizing" of Twitter is actually nothing new. It will probably have the same results. Direct contact of one man with 30,000,000 people is impossible. A president cannot care for every person in the country, that's inefficient governance itself! Don't you think?

If the Revolution empowers people to govern themselves and create an effective politic and economic system where they themselves administer the government money on their own, even allocate jobs for themselves in their own projects, than why is it necessary for the President to care about one house for one family through a tweet of one member of that family after 11 years in office? Why? That's absolutely inefficient governance!
@evagolinger: Deals with Russia, China, Iran, India, European nations and even US corporations are diversifying Venezuela’s trade partners, ensuring technological transfer to aid in national development and progress, and opening up Venezuela’s oil-focused economy. Some question Chavez’s deals with certain countries or companies, but the truth is, today, Venezuela’s economy is stronger and more diverse than ever before. Satellites have been launched, automobile factories built and even the agricultural industry has been revived thanks to Chavez’s vision of foreign policy. When beforehand, relations with foreign nations were based on oil supply and dollar input, today they are founded on the principles of integration, solidarity and cooperation, and most importantly, the transfer of technology to ensure Venezuela’s development.
@t6435bm: Ok. I see unsuccessful state companies that consumed a lot of public money, some of which didn't even launch (CVG Telecom, the sugarcane complex Ezequiel Zamora), I see a lot of money spent in buying big companies, which were working okay in the hands of their private owners, for the state (Electricidad de Caracas, CANTV, Lacteos los Andes), very expensive acquisition of manufacturing facilities, which doesn't necessarily mean transfer of technology (Veniran, VTelca, Orinoquia, Belarus Construction Materials, Russian Weapon Technology)... And I don't see any of this making our economy stronger. We still depend on foreign capital for investments in oil extraction, are more than ever dependent on imports, even on imports of food, encouraged by the government itself, who calls the selling of imported food by the government "nutritional sovereignty" or something like that. I see a systematic discouragement for our own farmers to produce food (through a lack of protection for them against theft and kidnapping in their properties, for example). And I see experiments of forced communes and communist social experiments, whose effective results on the productive economy I have not heard of. That's the development I see after 11 years of Revolution.
@evagolinger: Revolution is not an easy task. What is happening in Venezuela is possibly one of the most socially and politically compelling and challenging experiences in history. Massive changes are taking place on every level of society – economic, political, cultural and social – and everyone is involved. There have been no national curfews, states of emergencies, killings, disappearances, persecutions, political prisoners or other forms of repression imposed under Chavez’s reign, despite the coup d’etat, economic sabotages, electoral interventions, assassination attempts and other forms of subversion and destabilization that have attempted to overthrow his government during the past ten years. This is an inclusionary revolution, whether or not everyone wants to accept that fact.
@t6435bm: So if you mean that a totalitarian socialist regime a la Soviet Union has being in the making without curfews, states of emergency, killings, disappearances, persecutions and political prisoners in the "traditional" way of the 20th century, then you are completely right. So far. Nonetheless... the revolution here is following so close a path to the revolutionary path followed by Fidel Castro in Cuba at the beginning of his revolution, I wouldn't be so sure things like the control of the society by the revolutionary militia or the restriction of liberties through the revolutionary party members, are not coming. Without curfews, states of emergency, killings, disappearances, persecutions. But maybe with some political prisoners.

@evagolinger: Washington’s continued efforts to undermine Venezuela’s democracy through funding opposition campaigns and actions with over $50 million USD during the past seven years, or supporting coups and assassination plots against President Chavez, while at the same time pumping up military forces in the region, have all failed; so far.

@t6435bm:

Do you really think that campaigns from organizations like Ciudadanía Activa are against democracy? Do you actually thing that the opposition to Chavez shouldn't exist at all? Do you think that a government without ideological opposition can be democratic? Do you think that the socialist republics of eastern Europe in the 20th century were democratic? Do you think the Castros' regime is democratic? Then we got a different conception of democracy.

@evagolinger: But, they will continue. Venezuela – like it or not – is on an irrevocable path to revolution. The people have awoken and power is being redistributed. The task at hand now is to prevent corrupt forces within from destroying the new revolutionary model being built.

@t6435bm: Well that doesn't sound like democracy to me. First, if a majority of the Venezuelan people would decide today they don't want to continue walking the path of a socialist revolution anymore, they should have the possibility of changing the path, shouldn't they? Then how could this path be "irrevocable"? Aren't all executive offices of the Venezuelan state "revocable" in the text of the constitution of 1999? If someone who doesn't agree with the revolution conquers public opinion, then why shouldn't he or she be elected president? The Revolution isn't part of our constitution. It's part of a political tendency in our country. Just that.

On the other hand, the "corrupt forces from within" have to be prevented from destroying what model and by whom? If there is a legal system working, there is a law to follow. According to that, illegal acts should be punished. But someone cannot be legally punished because he or she doesn't like the revolution! So what's the definition of "corrupt" and who decides who's corrupt and who's not? Is a revolutionary stealing money or getting rich not corrupt, because he's a revolutionary?
@evagolinger: So while things may not be perfect in Venezuela, it’s time to take off the rose-colored glasses and see revolution for what it is: the trying, alluring, arduous, demanding and thrilling task of forging a just humanity. That’s the Venezuela of today.
@t6435bm:

"Forging a just humanity". That sounds so pretty. Unfortunately

I don't see that in the making here.

What I see is the same ill-functioning society we had in Venezuela before 1998 undergoing some maybe

fascinating and intriguing changes in the form of government it had in the last decades, which are becoming more visible and tangible every day

:

Community Councils, the ideologized Military, the Party of the Revolution... are being given the trying, alluring, arduous, demanding, thrilling and in some cases, profitable task of making a life-time presidency for the indispensable leader, Hugo Chavez, a reality. It doesn't matter if his administration is ineffective and inefficient. We are in a revolution anyway, and everything is constantly changing, and is being constantly attacked, from the inside and from the outside, from other Venezuelans, and from the American Empire, making it very difficult for the president to govern. But only he can do it.

So. Power TO THE PEOPLE? I don't think so.