Chavez Time Again
Apparently, “veinte anos no son nada,” as Carlos Gardel famously crooned.
Here we go again. Hugo Chavez is making a second stab Sunday at lifting presidential term limits, allowing himself to be re-elected an infinite amount of times. Twelve or fifteen years in power? A mere tick of the clock (at least by Fidelista metrics) .
Last time Chavez asked voters to open the door to perpetual rule, they said no. Let’s hope they slam the door definitively this weekend.
British socialist Ian Williams lays out the case for snubbing Hugo in this Guardian piece.
The Venezuelans convincingly elected Chávez, and it is up to them whether they want to see him haranguing them and the world ubiquitously and permanently on their TV screens. But just as foreigners watched bemused but resignedly as Americans re-elected Ronald Reagan and George Bush to second terms, we do not have to applaud their choice. Cheering every foreign leader who was rude about Bush has led to people who should know better to support Robert Mugabe, Kim Jong Il, Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic as saviours of the international proletariat.
Chávez is a more complicated case, not least since he has been blessed with such an incompetent and incoherent opposition at home and abroad.
One notes that Michael Bloomberg’s successful attempt to overcome term limits and run again for mayor of New York has not yet earned him anything like the obloquy that conservatives have heaped on Chávez for doing the same thing. Too often the degree of political attachment to eternal principles is a function of the glue of partisan interest.
But on the other hand, one wonders what the reaction of the American and European fans of Chávez would have been if either Reagan or Bush had sought to overthrow the 22nd amendment and run for another term.
Chavez, as it turns out, has worked himself into a bit of a squeeze. Not just because of some of the rather ugly pre-referendum funny business that’s been, um, coincidentally occurring. But he — and even more so his countrymen– are paying a high price for his bungled economic policies of the last decade. Instead of using the billions in petro-dollars that flowed in to develop sustainable and fundamental industries, Chavez doled it out in thick slabs of populist pork. A nice short-term way to alleviate some economic and social injustice but totally oblivious to the possibility that oil prices might fall, to say, $35 a barrel and leave Venezuela running on empty.
His biggest headache are three courageous students leaders who merit a lot more respect and admiration than Chavez does. I wish them luck on Sunday.
February 14th, 2009 at 5:54 am
Instead of using the billions in petro-dollars that flowed in to develop sustainable and fundamental industries, Chavez doled it out in thick slabs of populist pork.
—
A neoconservative talking point…
February 14th, 2009 at 7:50 am
Fer crissake, Marc, put the tilde in años, otherwise “Veinte años no es nada (Twenty years is nothing)” becomes “twenty assholes is nothing.” And Chávez takes an accent, too, not that he deserves it…
February 14th, 2009 at 9:46 am
I think Williams – who I know very little about – betrays his own bad judgement in this line: “Cheering every foreign leader who was rude about Bush has led to people who should know better to support Robert Mugabe, Kim Jong Il, Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic as saviours of the international proletariat.”
While I’m sure isolated instances of this can be found in certain of the cases mentioned – I can think of one, a guy whose name escapes me, who worked for IPS and defended Milosevic – but the flawed reference here is “people who should know better.” “People who should know better” don’t have a category called “saviours of the international proletariat” – so we can scratch the crazy leftists like Workers World, et. al. I’m not aware of any cohort of folks on the sane left who support Kim Il Jong, et al. Chavez is clearly in a different category and his case is more complex. A few “people who should know better” go too far in a blanket defense of Chavez primarily because of U.S. hostility (as opposed to those who criticize U.S. meddling or who give Chavez some credit for various social programs, while criticizing his thuggish approach to politics.) That’s a fair argument that I agree with. But this suggestion that there are lots of folks beyond the crazy communist left who defend Kim Il Jong (or even within that crank cohort, for that matter) and that discourse around Venezuela has parallels in the case of North Korea is descending pretty much into crazy rightwing canard territory in an effort to sanitize “left” debates. Williams needs to come up for air – sounds like he, himself, has been a “socialist” far too long and can’t think outside of that archaic paradigm and is, perhaps, overly familiar with too many folks who are not, in fact, capable of “knowing better.” (My assumption is that – like a lot of “British socialists” – he’s still got well-thumbed volumes of Leon Trotsky on his bookshelf. Just a guess.)
February 14th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Nobody Lives Forever…
This seems like a rather surprising post title given current events in my life, but it’s a fair question on this issue: If you are instituting a democratic revolution (Bolivarian or otherwise), shouldn’t the institutions be the element of change,……
February 14th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Reg,
You are WAY off on this one. Sorry. You’ve got Ian pegged completely wrong, his politics are very close to yours and he would consider himself way more a Democrat than some sort ox ex-Trotskyist.
Your main point is well-taken and generally on the mark, just off by a tad. Certainly people who live in the real world who abhor Bush are no defenders of Kim il Sung or Hussein (though way too many have been soft apologists for Chavez).
Your reaction speaks well of you. It means, as implied, you live in the real world. I suppose the difference between you and Ian (and me) is that the latter two of us — but mean serendipity of circumstance– are a degree or two closer to those to our “left” who, indeed, cheer for anyone who is our enemy’s enemy. I’m afraid I (and possibly Ian) encounter it a good deal more than you do. I dont think it has anything to do with being lost in well-thumbed volumes of Trotsky. It’s more likely a matter of employment and how one spends one day and who one is sorta forced to interact with — or not.
For openers, I have to co-exist with such mumbling trolls as DJ Slim who began this thread on MY blog. Clearly he’s almost pre-verbal and can form no audible argument, but he’s nevertheless here!
February 14th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
For openers, I have to co-exist with such mumbling trolls as DJ Slim who began this thread on MY blog. Clearly he’s almost pre-verbal and can form no audible argument, but he’s nevertheless here!
—
Sorry you take such strong exception to somebody pointing out that your critique of Chavez’s economic policies are the same as what can be read in the Weekly Standard. Except they wouldn’t use mind-numbing euphemisms like “sustainable and fundamental industries”. They would use a more direct formulation like capitalism or a free market economy. Let’s face it, Marc, your animosity toward Venezuela and Cuba is much more about the lack of private enterprise than it is about the lack of democracy. If only they would allow the owners of the LA Times and Exxon to come in, they too would be as fat and happy as the American rich and their apologists like you.
February 14th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Here I go dipping into the sewer to answer DJ:
l
Actually, genius, you are dead wrong. And u’ve got it bass ackwards. Venezuela’ s economy remains almost purely a market, free enterprise system rife with poverty and injustice and ex-ploitation. Ditto Cuba, except worse. There you have a state capitalist system with unsustainable wages, no union rights, and a widening gap between those who work in a service dollar economy (waiters, hookers and taxi drivers who earn a fortune) and professionals like doctors and teachers who get 900 calories a day on the “socialist” ration card. Workers? well forget about them. They make even less than doctors and they are NOT allowed to even beg for a wage increase.
APparently what you like the most had nothing to do with either country’s eocnomic system but rather being in teh company of such sweaty, macho and absolutely authoritarian strongmen. I suppose we could call it locker-room socialism.
February 14th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
I wonder where you get your information from. The Drudge Report?
World Bank heaps praise on Cuba
THE SCOTSMAN, May 02, 2001
CUBA was praised yesterday by the president of the World Bank in recognition of the Caribbean island’s achievement in providing some of Latin America’s highest standards of health care and education without a penny of foreign funding.
“Cuba has done a great job on education and health and if you judge the country by education and health they’ve done a terrific job,” the bank’s chief, James Wolfensohn, said at a press conference in Washington.
“So I have no hesitation in acknowledging that they’ve done a good job, and it does not embarrass me to do it. They should be congratulated for what they have done,” he added.
Statistics in the bank’s World Development Indicators report, issued during its spring meetings over the weekend, show that Cubans live longer than other Latin Americans, including residents of the US Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
At the same time, the island’s literacy levels are only equalled by the middle-income nations of Argentina and Uruguay.
The bank’s data shows life expectancy in Cuba is 76 years. Among Latin American countries, that is second only to Costa Rica at 77. It equals the showcase market economy of Chile, while it is ahead of Puerto Rico at 73 years; Argentina, Uruguay and Mexico, where the average person lives for 72 years; and Brazil, which lags at 67 years.
Infant mortality in Cuba is seven deaths per 1,000 live births, much lower than the rest of Latin America.
Only 3 per cent of Cuban males above the age of 15 years cannot read, a literacy rate that is five times better than Brazil and 16 times ahead of Haiti, the data shows.
Cuba withdrew from the World Bank and its sister lending agency, the International Monetary Fund, in 1959, less than a year after the revolution led by Fidel Castro. It still remains outside these so-called Bretton Woods institutions, along with North Korea, Libya and Burma.
At last month’s World Bank Summit of the Americas in Quebec, Mr Wolfensohn said the Bank pledged support for Latin American and Caribbean countries, proposing $12 to $16 billion in loans and credits for the region over the next three years.
“About one in three people in Latin America and the Caribbean lives on less than $2 a day,” he said, emphasising that it was up to governments to determine the priorities for World Bank loans.
He singled out health and education for special attention. “A full-scale attack on poverty requires investments in health care and education, to build the human resources countries need to compete.”
http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/world.cfm?id=68516
February 14th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Reg,
Williams has often been in the minority on the left. The time I remember is described in:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/05/27/williams/
Takes you back, no?
February 14th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
the obloquy that conservatives have heaped on Chávez for doing the same thing
I certainly won’t argue with Williams as to what part of the spectrum such criticisms represent.
one wonders what the reaction of the American and European fans of Chávez would have been if either Reagan or Bush had sought to overthrow the 22nd amendment and run for another term.
Or what if PURE EVIL had sought it? OTOH, this would read rather differently if “Reagan or Bush” were replaced by “Clinton”, and it helps to remember that we didn’t fare too badly with FDR pre-22nd amendment. Of course, it would also read differently without the obscenely loaded term “overthrow”; there’s a Constitutionally prescribed method for adding or repealing amendments, and if successful, the results of application of that method are Constitutionally valid regardless of who seeks them. But let’s not let such objective facts interfere with a nice bit of intellectually dishonest propagandizing.
February 14th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
I wonder where you get your information from. The Drudge Report?
The claims there are less ideologically motivated and better supported. But I prefer, say,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Cuba
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing_in_Cuba
February 15th, 2009 at 5:37 am
The claims there are less ideologically motivated and better supported. But I prefer, say,
—
Of course. P.J. O’Rourke is famous for his impartiality when it comes to commie states.
February 15th, 2009 at 7:04 am
MT – I think that Williams, having been on the pro-intervention side of debate over Yugoslavia, doesn’t get to lump such disagreements together with implications about “people who should know better” supporting Kim Il Jong, Saddam Hussen, Milosevic, et. al. Opposing military intervention isn’t the same as supporting a dictator. I assume that Williams never supported a US invasion of China, but I doubt he ever supported Mao Tse Tung.
I wasn’t a vocal opponent of Clinton’s policy in Yugoslavia, but I still always had nagging doubts about it – I was, frankly, not really able to convince myself of the “lesser evil” in that horrific episode. What unsettled me most was that the “solution” was primarily a bombing campaign, a choice which I am certain had consequences much worse than those who celebrate the salvation of “former Yugoslavians” are willing to admit.
And, as I said, I think its intellectually dishonest to raise specters of Saddam, Mugabe and Kim Il Jong in the discussion over Chavez. Chavez is proposing a vote on the question of term limits. It may be a dreadful idea, particularly when an erratic character like Chavez is already in office proposing it. But what Chavez’ style of governance, no matter how irresponsible or rough in its particular context, has to do with Kim Il Jong or Milosovec escapes me. I presume Williams isn’t going to propose that we proceed with a bombing campaign against Caracas if Chavez manages to bamboozle voters with his referendum. Oh, wait. That’s a hyperbolic, ridiculous analogy that one would only inject into this discussion if one wanted to cloud discussion with old, exaggerated resentments.
February 15th, 2009 at 11:43 am
Marc – I just caught your comment and I guess I was thrown by that “British socialist” tag – which raises the specter of trotskyist splinters. I don’t disagree with criticism of Chavez – I just thought that Williams was throwing a rather large and unfortunate straw man into the mix by bringing up Kim Il Jong, et. al. Also – like you – one of my biggest problems with Chavez is that while some of his projects are laudable, I get no sense that he’s got any economic strategy for using the short-term benefits of oil money productively beyond some social welfare programs. I don’t have a blueprint, but Chavez and his advisors should be working on one that goes beyond handouts.
February 15th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
We never have to worry about election fraud under Chavez, because Jimmy Carter certifies his elections.
February 15th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Nuts. Here’s the link http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110005518
February 15th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Victory! Chavez wins vote to scrap term limits in Venezuela
Funny. The type of people who support Chavez are the same type who support Obama–leeches. Now, Obama needs to complete his “national service corps” to keep opponents in line, just as Chavez threatens. After all, that’s what socialism is all about–stealing other people’s money accompanied by threats of police force.
February 15th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
Of course. P.J. O’Rourke is famous for his impartiality when it comes to commie states.
Um, I was stating that, when it comes to Chavez, the Drudge Report is less ideologically motivated and better supported than what MC is peddling.
February 15th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
The type of people who support Chavez are the same type who support Obama–leeches.
The most evil of sentiments, but genuine I’m sure.
February 15th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Holy Cow, Woody. You sound just like a lot of us did in the 60′s when we were very young, very angry and filled with disgust with our own country and its people. Obama won an American election with almost 370 electoral votes and by an historically wide margin of the popular vote. The same American people gave big majorities to Obama in the House and the Senate.
There is no fair way to interpret your view as one that is anything except profoundly anti-American. Or at a minimum, one that holds the vast majority of the American people in great contempt for their stupidity. You sound like a Maoist.
February 16th, 2009 at 6:09 am
Ahh, Marc, the Democrats have taken our democracy past the tipping point to where there are more people dependent upon government than there are contributors. The government that Obama is creating is not that of our founders and not one that encourages initiative and protects freedoms.
February 16th, 2009 at 7:34 am
I wonder what it’s like to wander through life without any sense of irony or self-awareness.
February 16th, 2009 at 9:31 am
What’s it like to have an awareness of things that you believe, say, and do – knowing that they are wrong – but not care?
February 16th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
What’s it like to have an awareness of things that you believe, say, and do – knowing that they are wrong – but not care?
Like you with torture, uh Woody?
April 23rd, 2009 at 12:29 am
Could you recommend any specific resources, books, or other blogs on this specific NLP topic?
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