Since when?

http://www.michaelbalter.com

Thanks as always for the mention. Chávez is an excellent case study in the ends not justifying the means. There is no question that Venezuela with the riches it has – not just petroleum, but other mineral riches like bauxite, gold, etc as well as thousands upon thousands of hectares of arable farmland – should not have so much of its population living in poverty.

Similarly, it’s easy to be repelled by the way Chávez has treated those who disagree with him. If he wanted to effect lasting change, one would think that power is not the only equation to effecting that change. If he had made a concerted effort to involve some of the opposition and at least attempt to convince them of the need for some essential reforms, if they had responded arrogantly, he could at least show that he had made the effort and the burden of bad faith would be largely on the opposition.

It’s also easy to find so much fault with the opposition: the attempted coup and the strikes (which in true laws of unintended consequences fashion probably strengthened Chávez) as well as their inability to articulate a position other than, in true Rick Lazio-esque style, that they were not Chávez. if ever the notion of a plague on both of their houses applied it’s here.

Oh, that’s right. Comrade Chavez is a leftist, and you have no enemies to the left.

Perhaps you should go to Libya. Get an enemy. Get a clue.

Steve Philion

Travel Donations will be accepted via Paypal.

So do me a favor, Ahmed, and stop worrying about my ideological soundness…I can save you the trouble of any further inquiry by CONFESSING that I am, alas, politically unreliable and prone … I admit… to frequent second thoughts and self-doubt and that at bottom I am nothing but a dilettante petit-bourgeois intellectual with crass materialist aspirations.

Your time in any case would be much better spent asking yourself who all those American lefies are who have NO Walzer moments but do get their panties wet in the presence of a punk like Chavez. He is hardly my prime target, as you put it. But if he were, so what?

As to Sharpton… no doubt he stole the DNC. Isnt theft one of his specialties?

you want to hear about. When Helen Thomas said Bush was the worst president we ever had, I agreed with her(heck, that was obvious from the get go). Bur that doesn’t mean there are not other targets of opportunity, so to speak.

As far as Rev. Al being some kind of `liberal darling’, get out a here! Why he was allowed at the convention(well, hell, it was for the black vote), I don’t really understand, considering his campaign was purportedly Republican financed…

(*Snail mail generally results in return snail mail which is usually a little more thougtful than e-mail responses in my experience)

Now…back to condeming US Imperialism!

Thanks as always for the mention. Chávez is an excellent case study in the ends not justifying the means. There is no question that Venezuela with the riches it has – not just petroleum, but other mineral riches like bauxite, gold, etc as well as thousands upon thousands of hectares of arable farmland – should not have so much of its population living in poverty.

Similarly, it’s easy to be repelled by the way Chávez has treated those who disagree with him. If he wanted to effect lasting change, one would think that power is not the only equation to effecting that change. If he had made a concerted effort to involve some of the opposition and at least attempt to convince them of the need for some essential reforms, if they had responded arrogantly, he could at least show that he had made the effort and the burden of bad faith would be largely on the opposition.

It’s also easy to find so much fault with the opposition: the attempted coup and the strikes (which in true laws of unintended consequences fashion probably strengthened Chávez) as well as their inability to articulate a position other than, in true Rick Lazio-esque style, that they were not Chávez. if ever the notion of a plague on both of their houses applied it’s here.