Essay on Chavez: Weakening Democracy

     Democracy is defined as “A system of government in which ultimate political authority is vested in the People.” The Declaration’s

Cesar Chavez once explained the horrors of society when he said, “When the man who feeds the world by toiling in the fields is himself deprived of the basic rights of feeding, sheltering and caring for is family, the whole community of man is sick.” (ufw.org) That means that the whole of humanity is sick and cruel when the man who works the fields all day long to feed the all of the citizens of the entire world can’t even provide for himself. It was not a small amount of people it affected, it was millions, and millions of citizens across the world. Chavez was a large factor in beginning to abolish racism, or also called the Civil Rights Movement.

The company was aware of what Chavez was doing, but they didn’t pay that much attention until they started to lose money. The boss of the company was started to get concerned and started sending his people to stop the strikes. The strikes of Chavez were nonviolence so he didn’t care if the police or somebody came to stop it because it’s against the law. However, the boss sends his people over to Chavez and told him that if they don’t stop the strike they will open fire to all the people. The people of Chavez were getting scared, but Chavez was motivating them by saying “si so Puede” until the police shot fire and took Chavez to jail. Cesar kept fighting until he got out of jail and proceed his work he had left. Cesar was losing hope because people were not following him because if they do they will get shot. Cesar stopped eating for a week to see if the people were still caring to change the way they were getting threaten and the people got the message and started doing strikes again without fear. The company was in rage, but they couldn’t do anything and the people were getting hopped. People from other countries were joining them too. People were with Chavez and when the company had no choice but to surrender. Chavez at the end stood up and started to eat again and he does justice for his people and for all the people around the world saying the famous phrase, “Si se Puede”.

Democracy is a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, and is one with representative institutions and a rule of law.

Chavez wanted to help the community that he came from, as well as others like it. The migrant worker community became his main focus, this resulted his creation of the UFW in 1962 (Chavez Foundation). His earlier life as a migrant worker would be a strong influence for attaining better working conditions for those workers. Early in Chavez’s life, he was exposed to the hardships of migrant working. When Chavez was 10 his family was forced from their home in Yuma, Arizona because of back taxes and because of the depression, his family couldn’t pay the payments (Castillo and Garcia, 7). Chavez began migrant work when he was 14, and the injustices had a memorable effect. Migrant workers were often exploited because of their lack of organization in a uniform union group, something that Chavez would eventually change. In future years the UFW would give migrant workers a voice in the conditions under which they were living and working.

Chavez encountered many obstacles after the formation of his union and at the beginning of their strike. Aside from the fact that many of the workers were hesitant to join Chavez and go against

Few benefits, and little pay were some conditions he fought for. Before Chavez and others had fought for rights they have now days, they were overworked in horrible conditions which included not having accessible clean drinkable water, they were not provided with any bathrooms. The women had to huddle together and try to make a barrier for privacy to do basic needs. If anyone got sick, there were no doctors available and they had to get better by homemade medicine passed down from generation to generation which was not always efficient. Women did not have maternity leave they worked pregnant for long periods of time, not taking any breaks to fuel their bodies or their growing wombs. If their children got sick, it was costly to take them to the doctor. Conditions were very inhumane. Workers were exposed to harsh chemicals and many deadly pesticides that left many workers sick for life. The chemicals were sprayed on the fields to decrease the insects that damaged the quality of the crops. The pesticides might have gotten rid of the pests, but got many people sick , they were dangerous, cancerous, and caused birth

He did his best to bring an outcome to better improvement. For instance the author of the article of “Chavez,Cesear” by Jaime Cardenas mentions that Chavez “went on hunger strikes to express his deep commitment to the cause” ( par.3). It’s the thought that counts what he did, however he is not just determine and dedicated he is also hard working. The way Chavez expressed hard work is by “a series of fasts and strikes” (Cardenas par.2). Hard work is put into these events to move forward with volunteers and resources. Within time Chavez fought through hard times for this people because he understood the poverty, the ongoing racism, and the unfair treatment to these people as it included him. Additionally he succeeded through “nonviolent resistance” (Cesar Chavez: Champion of Migrant Farmworkers par.1) and were recognized for the importance of all the farm workers’

In the end Chavez won the fight he did so by having protests. They were not just any kind of protests, but they were peaceful. The protest group was called The United Farm Works. Later on he discovered that harmful pesticides were being sprayed in the fields. That were affecting the health of the workers. Still throughout it all he kept calm, never raising a hand showing great civil disobedience.

Democracy, as it is used today, means “ the people rule.” A democracy is a form of government ruled by the people of the country through elections and representation. A democracy is really a form of republic known as a democratic republic. A republic is a government where officials elected by a small group of people that make the important decisions.

As I said before, many critics agreed that Hugo Chavez has been able to diminished Venezuelan democracy to convert it to a competitive authoritarian regime. Chavez has controlled the country and stills does, in a way in that using populism and his policy of clientism he gets the masses and specially the poor to support him and agreed with him in many of his reforms and actions. Allying himself with leftist countries like Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and especially Cuba, Chavez has implemented what he calls a “Bolivarian Revolution”, revolution that allows him to have a complete control of the country. Furthermore, Chavez has been using the oil revenues not only as a method of getting international support for his ideas and type of regime but also, for his own personal enrichment

The term “democracy” had multiple definitions, including a government that was directly governed by the people. This term was used more often during the American Revolution to inspire the struggle for independence.

The political system in Venezuela is communist or socialist, depending on how one defines the terms and views the nation. The official name of Venezuela is the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, an allusion to the revolutions started by Simon Bolivar in many areas of South America. The majority of those countries are socialist or communist in their governmental systems. Nicholas Maduro is the current president, and can serve as president for as many terms as he wants. The United Socialist Party, or PSUV, is one of the major parties in the nation. The PUSV, formerly unchallenged in power, lost the most recent

Also democracy provides political rights, civil liberties and freedom of press, freedom of association and freedom to oppose to their governments without being afraid of the consequences. Each nation has a unique democratic way of controlling things and under a democratic system people in Latin America could be govern by the government that they choose to and not the military authority or dictatorship. In order to form democracy in Latin American there had to be revolution against authority and the violence that imposed to their citizens. (Isbester K., 2011) O’Donelli defines democracy as ‘patterns, formal and informal and explicit or implicit, that determine the channels of access to principal government positions; the characteristics of the actors who are admitted and excluded ... and the resources and strategies that they are allowed to use for gaining access’

Theoretically, democracy is a stable form of government where power is in the hands of the people. In a democracy, people have the liberty to elect officials that best represent their interests, and political institutions exist as a result: Benjamin Constant argues in The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Moderns that “true modern liberty is