Many people forget that fascist dictatorships also mostly provide health care and education. Providing health care and education does not make a regime left-wing.

Denounce Castro, Chavez, Mugabe, etc. as fascists and move on. Also recognize that a lot of the supporters of these regimes(Chomsky, Pinter, Pilger, Belafonte, Galloway) are themselves not really progressives either. Galloway in particular’s only identification with the left is that he’s anti-war. So? Pat Buchanan’s anti-war. Galloway is a classic right-wing thug in the Buchanan mold.

Marc,

I really like most of what you write and I enjoy unembarrassed independent commentary from the left, rejecting any group-think. I’m also glad to see you take on the sinister and preposterous elements of the left. But why this dialogue-of-the-deaf approach to the subject of Venezuela?

You have great experience of Latin America, you know what it is like to be poor there, you know what is going through the minds of Chavez voters and you have direct experience from Chile of the Latin American right and US regional policy.

So why insist on shoving these issues aside to discuss Venezuela through such a restrictive prism and then insist that people on the left who don’t express their criticism of Chavez in the same tone are engaging in acts of power-worship? If you are going to condemn Chavez in the name of internationalism, fine, but that same international sentiment should grant some room for considering the viewpoint of the Venezuelan electorate.

You could at least do the subject the justice of laying out the issues in a reasonable fashion – Buruma writes an article on Venzeuela without mentioning the opposition, the military coup of 2002 – a 48-hour dictatorship which was widely applauded in the West – or the Caracazo of 1989, a huge massacre of pre-Chavez Venezuela we have all decided to forget. I guess we just got over it and moved on with our lives. Or perhaps we just never bothered to learn that it had happened in the first place.

The rest of Buruma’s article consists of the usual cliche – a brief run-down of Western intellectuals who supported tyranny, restricted entirely to the left. An important lesson in history rendered useless by its intensely selective recollection and reproduced in a right-wing paper (and yes, that is an important point – George Orwell refused to print his justified criticisms of the left in right-wing papers and even refused to allow a journal to publish Animal Farm because it wasn’t sufficiently left-wing). Orwell’s stance was highly principled, unlike many of those who wrongly imagine that they are treading in his foot-steps.

And then there’s the neat sub-heading that Chavez is a ‘dictator-in-waiting’ (waiting for what, another election? Another plebiscite? What is slowing him down?) – a dictator to be, as in ‘not actually a dictator’. You will recall this rhetoric from Chile in 1970-3 and how it was used to pave the way for an actual dictatorship (and one that received many plaudits from Western intellectuals and groupies and still does, as you know).

I’m glad you gave some space to my friend Johann Hari whose enthusiasm for the government of Venezuela stems from his experience of the country and comes despite his strong condemnation of dictators like Castro and lefties who apologise for them.

But even then, you give space to a genuine progressive like Hari grudgingly. I think this approach considerably weakens your ability to successfully challenge groups like ANSWER and the World Workers’ Party, if you will insist that many of your own readers are just a bunch of whiners if they take issue with you on these pretty serious matters.

You’re absolutely right that criticism of Chavez should be a part of the left’s dialogue on Venezuela, but your unwillingness to engage with any other aspect of the debate does you little credit.
____________________________________

Oh, and BunkerBuster, George Galloway really is a crook:

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=457&row=0

Greg Palast’s expose is pretty devastating and Galloway’s reply does not begin to answer it.

People here made allegations against Galloway. I provided some counter evidence.

You raise doubts about my evidence, yet provide none of your own. It takes 2 minutes to Google for this stuff and the fact that you decline to do even that much says a lot about how you arrive at your opinions about Mr. Galloway.

You can find Mr. Galloway’s riposte to similar attacks here:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=8776

the wikipedia encyclopedia is far from authoritative. anyone can make up your own bio and publish it there. its a public access encyclopedia that it seems galloways’s pr team has learned how to manipulate.

cut’n'paste from Wikipedia. You’d think Galloway’s slavish critics would at least bother to Google their overheated allegations…

Does this sound like Hugo Chavez:

EGAT directors resign amid workers’ protests PRIVATISATION:
By AMY KAZMIN
DATELINE: BANGKOK

Directors of the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand have resigned en masse after failing to quell workers’ protests against plans to partially privatise the utility.

Thaksin Shinawatra, prime minister, is hoping the new board will help the government overcome resistance to the planned Dollars 1.7bn public offering of EGAT shares, which was to take place in mid-May.

In an embarrassing political setback, Mr Thaksin was last month forced to postpone the share sale, after mass demonstrations by unions that represent EGAT’s 30,000 employees.

The government wants to sell a 25 per cent stake in the utility to the public as a step towards improving the agency’s efficiency, but also to boost the market capitalisation of the Thai stock market.

All over the world, Hugo Chavez is lambasted for trying to establish another Cuba in Venezuela, but only in Rupert Murdoch’s London Times can Buruma get away with comparing to him to a head of state who is hated by the trade unions for privatization. This is the same Murdoch who owns FOX-TV and the NY Post. Buruma, brain damage and all, is his kind of guy.

It is fascinating that both he and Cooper are journalism professors. Your first reaction would be one of astonishment that such ineptitude could be rewarded. But in thinking about the role of the media in American society, their teaching students about how to do journalism makes *perfect sense*.

Just to put your comment in perspective, the first time I ever heard of Pinter, Galloway, and ANSWER was on this very website. I’ve been on the left since high school, worked with Catholic peace and justice organizations in college (including the Catholic Worker), non-denominational Christian social justice organizations post-college, and never once heard of these groups. Incidentally, I grew up and went to college in the Midwest, where we don’t look to coastal groups to guide our organizational events. So your “many people” is, as usual, a coastal generalization useless to us Heartlanders. In other words, the “who leads the left” hand-wringing and loon-fearing is, for the vast majority of us on the left, simply irrelevant. We find there’s too much actual work to do instead.

What tires me about this argument is that it offers no solution except that those of us on the left (if Marc is to be believed) have to spend a great deal of our time denouncing kooks on our side of the political spectrum. This argument has devolved to the point of being cant. It also plays into the hands of the right. Whatever time we spend criticizing the likes of Harold Pinter, et al, is less time spent advocating for issues we believe in.

I have said this countless times and I will say it again. I am responsible for my actions and statements; not Harry Belafonte’s, not Harold Pinter’s, not Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s. Mine.

I refuse to do an auto-dá-fé every time some kook shoots off their mouth. Yá basta!

What planet are you communicating from ?

I, incidentally, have moderately liberal friends – the kind of people who thought we should go after bin Laden in Afghanistan and were disappointed by the failure to do so effectively – who saw the Iraq war as pure hype and potential disaster, went to the big demos in the Bay Area for which, presumably, ANSWER got the parade permits and more-or-less owned the podium – and they couldn’t tell you the first thing about who/what ANSWER is or represents, never heard of Worker’s World Party, and certainly have no clue nor interest in the arcana of Brit ultra-leftism being batted about here. They know all about Amnesty International, of course.

I really think that the sectarians on the left can be identified first and foremost by their penchant to engage in this mutual navel-gazing/slinging-and-arrowing that assumes that there is, in fact, a left in the U.S. outside of the left-liberal wing of the Democratic Party that anyone who could be construed as a normal person/average citizen knows or cares about. There isn’t and they don’t. (Yeah, yeah…Michael Moore ! A guy who makes movies and sells books !) I used to lament the lack of a radical left with political credibility (as opposed to occasional cultural impact) when I was young and stupid, but increasingly I think it’s a real plus for the country. Let the right-wing own the bulk of the people who cling to crackpot theories, faith-based belief systems, apocalyptic predictions and unhinged ideologies.

for ex., take the frequent characterization of leftists presidents in the region by the so-called experts (whom most often are conservative, pro-neoliberal thinkers in denial about the failure of “el modelo”) quoted almost religously by mainstream media that these leaders are “populists” because they, heaven forbid, do what democracies are designed to do and respond to the wishes of the majority. when rightist heads of state have on the other hand exclusively pandered to the interests of their backers, the corporate heads, the wealthy, generals and other fools, do they get some such vague, demonizing label? i rarely hear of rightist politicians called populist except when a rare few occasionally try to make appeals to the poor.

in the final analysis, i don’t think chavez is a threat to the u.s. or anyone else in the region. and he is no castro and not peron. but he can be rightly criticized for some of his authoritation moves. but lets put that in context.

while its election process may not be perfect, and not completely abuse-free, venezuela, as the us state department human rights report acknowledges, and as the oas and the carter center have confirmed, has a functioning, fair election process. the complaints from the opposition about the elections board there being biased and not transparent, such complaints have so far not impaired the ability of the people to change its leaders. the complaints lobbed by the opposition there are at best in the same category as the similar complaints we have about the election in the united states. take florida and gore vs. bush, for example. or the alleged irregularities by election authorities in states like ohio during the 2004 presidential election. the biggest reason the legislative branch, and the presidency, are in the hands of chavez is chavez’s popularity among the majority poor and ineffective leadership among the opposition. and the politicians that came prior to chavez were not much to brag about. as the OAS secretary general said recently of the opposition’s boycott of legislative elections last december:

“We had a problem with the Venezuelan opposition, which assured us that they would not withdraw from the [electoral] process if certain conditions were met. These were met and, despite this, they withdrew.” Insulza continued, “if the path of abstention is chosen, then one cannot complain that the entire parliament is in the hands of one’s political adversary.”

the two areas of legitimate, major concern in today’s venezuela are press freedoms and the judiciary. still largely controlled by the opposition on the right, most of the media continues with its anti-chavez bias and attacks despite a much criticized law passed in december 2004 that beefed up libel and slander provisions for insults of the president and state institutions. the supreme court also in fact ruled in october of last year against a libel suit filed by the government against a newspaper for an editorial it put out criticizing a judge. but the law still has an intimidating effect and it gives the state the potential to obstruct freedom of the press sometime down the line. the so-called leftist “groupies” who support chavez ought to press him to do away with it.

the largest authoritarian mis-step so far has been the chavez machine increasing the size of the supreme court and then filling those posts with its allies. the result is in fact a severely compromised judiciary whose independence is in doubt. (on the other hand, the judiciary that came before was nothing to write home about.)

in sum, while i denounce the authoritarian moves made by chavez, and am not a fan of all of his policy choices, i have doubts for example about his management of the economy, chavez is not as much of a boogie man as he is being painted as in the media. he is a loud mouth, whose love of power could ultimately turn him into a full-fledged authoritarian bad man in the class mentioned by buruma and others, but up to now he falls short of that category. his greatest fault is his inability to develop respectful relations with the venezuelan opposition on the right. but thats not all his fault, either.

There are more strawmen here than a roadshow production of the Wizard of Oz. So he totes out Harold Pinter and Harry Belafonte, while ignoring left-leaning think tanks like the Center for International Programs and their position regarding Chávez:

Hugo Chávez is legitimate, elected, and CIP firmly opposes anything that even remotely resembles a U.S. effort at regime change. We also applaud his channeling of Venezuelan oil wealth to badly needed social-services. Chávez is a complicated figure, though. Though he is usually called “leftist,” some of his government’s policies run counter to the goals of some important progressive causes.

Those who value press freedom should be concerned about a recently passed law with vaguely worded language allowing the government to close down media outlets deemed to be inciting violence or threatening public order.

Those who value demilitarization should be concerned about the host of new internal non-defense roles the new constitution has given the Venezuelan military, as well as President Chávez’s plan to create a 2 million-strong army reserve.

Those who value respect for human rights should be concerned about limits on freedom of expression and the independence of the judiciary, and about the role that “Bolivarian Circles” may be playing in intimidating dissent. The Inter-American Human Rights Commission and Human Rights Watch have already registered concerns about these issues.

Those who value equal rights and opportunities for women should be offended by President Chávez’s crude and suggestive comments about Condoleezza Rice in January.

Those who want to limit global small-arms transfers should be worried about the Venezuelan government’s latest weapons-buying spree, including the purchase of 100,000 AK-47 assault rifles from Russia.

There’s not a word in there I disagree with. Adam Siacson, who wrote regularly testifies before Congress on LatAm issues.

Not a word about Human Rights Watch’s criticisms of Chavez. Not a word about AI’s reports on human rights in Venezuela.

He makes no mention of the late Susan Sontag’s public excoriation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez for failing to condemn the crackdown on dissidents or José Saramago’s break with Castro over the dissidents and the execution of the hijackers.

So did that notorious leftie Steve Largent.

Carter gave hope to dissidents in Cuba.
That’s according to the dissidents:

”I was expecting a lot from his visit, but in reality, it exceeded my hopes,” said Oscar Espinosa, a former Cuban government economist who is now part of the
island’s small dissident movement. ”The government has always manipulated its visitors, yet President Carter was able to speak without any control. He said things nobody has ever been able to say publicly, and he did so in a balanced, respectful way. It was very powerful.”

Dissidents say the Carter visit, which included several meetings with top opposition leaders, drew worldwide attention to their efforts, but also prompted a new dialogue among thousands of everyday Cubans who have long been afraid of questioning their government.

While there has been a crackdown on the opposition since Carter left, dissident leaders say the visit inspired them to keep up their difficult, dangerous work.

”He was able to do what none of us as Cuban citizens can do — give our opinions openly and freely,” said Oswaldo Paya, another top Cuban dissident. ”He gave a voice to those who have no voice.”

During his 20-minute speech, delivered in Spanish edged with a Georgia drawl, Carter praised Cuba’s health and education systems, but also pointedly criticized the nation’s Communist rulers for choking off free speech and not allowing open, democratic elections.

The most controversial moment came when Carter praised the Varela Project, a petition drive calling for a referendum on government reforms.

When will the rightwing learn that a baldfaced lie gains no truth through mindless repetition?

When Elian Gonazalez was snatched crying by Clinton and Reno’s assault squad pointing automatic weapons at him and the relatives of his dead mother to whom she was escaping from Cuba and who were providing loving care for the child, and when that Justice(?) Department shipped Elian back to Castro, the left cheered.

When the worst President and ex-President in my life (much worse than Bush) visited Castro in Cuba and hugged him in a love fest, the left praised that as detente–despite official U.S. policy against such contact and Castro using Carter as a stooge for propaganda purposes.

I think that he people on the left described by this article do represent the attitudes of the majority of that persuasion. It’s their automatic reaction to find fault with America.

BTW, the U.S. recently added Venezuela to its axis of evil and banned selling of weapons to them. But, a peaceful ruler like Chavez, concerned more for spending for his people, doesn’t need and wouldn’t use weapons–would he? An automatic reaction of the left, though, is to say that he needs them to defend against the U.S. Am I right? So, Iran needs nuclear weapons because of the U.S., too.

When will the left wake up and back the right side?