Not long after President Hugo Chavez had his confrontation with King Juan Carlos, now it seems he’s all but breaking diplomatic relations with Colombia, this time after President Uribe put a stop to Chavez’s mediation efforts between the Colombian government and the FARC.
This time, it was President Uribe’s turn to receive Chavez’s wrath, with Chavez calling the Colombian president a “liar”.
If President Chavez keeps confronting (in public) other heads of state like this, what might be the result?
Well, Chavez is not taking on the whole world – he has also been going out of his way to forge alliances with a lot of countries (Russia, Iran, Belarus) with which you might not think Venezuela has any obvious common interests, other than opposition to the U.S.
As usualy, Brainglutton, you reflexively admire the most far-left position possible.
Try this. First off, this is a dispute between two leftist governments. Second, the critical point which BG misses is that Chavez has been revealed to be not only a bumbling moron but a back-stabbing treacherous terrorist (or at least guerrila) supporter.
Well, Chavez was re-elected last December so he has another five years to go in his current term, right? If he “melts down” during that period, what form would that take? Resignation? Revolution? Another coup?
Because it’s so much more important for Venezuela to be on good terms with Belarus than it is with Colombia.
It’s time to accept that Chavez is not on the correct path. He’s consolidating power through quasi-constitutional means, silencing dissent, and using classical fascist methods of drumming up hatred of real and imagined enemies to solidify his own support.
Leftist. I know you don’t consider anything right of Stalin to be centrist, BG, but seriously, it’s a left-of-center party.
Like conducting “mediation” while covertly and then openly suporting the radical murderous killers? Did you read what the meltdown was about?
Look, BG, Chavez is a very, very bad man. He’s also cunning most of them time. Like many dictators, he has no sense of proportion and tends to think of himself as invincible and above social mores. His first, earlier foray into Venezualan politics was not too bad. Despite his economic mismanagement, he didn’t have enough power to wreck a strong economy. Now he does, and is doing so quite rapidly. It’s a good thing for Chavez the poor vote for him, because he’s gonna make a lot more them.
Um, but you did notice that Uribe’s no longer a member of it, right? I mean, Ronald Reagan used to be a Democrat, too.
AFAICT from the description of Uribe’s own policy positions, he seems to be considered not a leftist but rather one of the “World Bank neoliberal leaders” who used to be somewhat more abundant in Latin America than they are now.
All that Bonapartist presidentialism does indeed stick in my craw, and many of the things over which he gets exercised are just plain silly. (Halloween? As an instance of Yankee cultural imperialism?! Sure it is, but lighten up, Hugo!) Still, this is Latin American politics :rolleyes: and you have to make allowances. He’s still a better man than Uribe by any reasonable measure.
Uribe’s not a leftist, by the operational definition that applies to his political environment – we keep forgetting that the midpoint fo the political scale is not the same everywhere on the planet. By South American political coordinates he’s center-right to center (OTOH, the heckling of the speech by Rodríguez Zapatero WAS a spat between two leftists). In any case…
At a closer distance, many around here figure that Chavez’s recent confrontational foreign shenanigans are meant for domestic consumption. Remember, very shortly there’ll be a referendum on a Constitutional Reform that will (a) expand his prerrogatives even more and (b) make the social, economic and government-management policies of his administration a permanent part of the nation’s Constitution itself. By showing how he stands up to outsiders, he whips up nationalist fervor at home and increases the turnout from his supporters.
Thing is, Chavez STILL has a lot of support domestically, specially among the poor; and his movement is cohesive and united (and when you add other nationalist/left groups, a majority). The other side have never had their act together; the old political parties are discredited through and through by their corruption, and nobody “clean” with enough credibility or charisma has come about to unite the opposition. That the masses of Venezuela decided to cast their lot with a volatile nationalist-populist loose-cannon type is an indictment of the wasted opportunity of 50 years of “formal liberal democracy” that failed to deliver to the man-in-the-street what he expected. Chavez ascends at a time where many Venezuelans were at the point of saying, I don’t care if the economists say he’s bad on the long-term picture, at least throw ME SOMETHING of all that oil money, and make the rich guy up the street be the one having a hard time for a change. Y’see, this is one of the dangers of selling to the people a “democracy” defined merely as free elections, as the cure-all for their social woes: what hapens when it doesn’t
Chavez has been able to reshape the country strictly through legal political means, no mean feat; true, this was facilitated by an ill-advised opposition election boycott which made the Legislature 100% chavista (again, shooting themselves in the foot). Sure, he is personally an unsophisticated clown who sets forth ill-thought policies in an ideological daze and has little regard for the formalities of statesmanship or the idea that he can’t just command things be done his way. He isn’t the only one who meets that description and heads a country, is he? But a large number of the Venezuelan people see him as at least NOT being more of the same elite politics, as being “one of us” and believe you me that’s powerful in politics.
And under the next administration, even if it is a right-wing one. Something Chavez should seriously consider if he really wants his “Bolivarian Revolution” to last.
I’m not even going into the trivial stuff. He’s a straight-up banan republic dictator (or at least a wannabe) and is taking every possible step to consolidate is power and become el presidente for life. And it’s becoming increasingly clear that he can and will use lethal force to enforce his will and protect his position.
Oh, yes. It’s cultural imperialism. Because we’ve sent 500,000 marines to make sure all the kids walk around on October 31st wearing masks and getting candy. :rolleyes:
BG, quit while you’re only so far behind. Let’s really not go there, as it will expand this thread to a horrible flaming trainwreck of a mess. Chavez is a better man than almost no one by any reasonable measure. I’ll put him ahead of Robert Mugabe and Kim Jong-Il, and a few other old-line dictators. Give him time though, and who knows how low he could sink.
Uribe is (to his great credit) not in Chavez’s league.
That’s not how cultural imperialism works. Cultural imperialism, nowadays, is for the most part not even intentional on the part of the dominant culture’s government or businesses. (As discussed at great length in this recent thread.) But I can still understand how it could be a thing feared; it’s not rational, but it is understandable.
What? Chavez v. Uribe is what this thread is (purportedly) about. Regarding which you could and should (but won’t) profit greatly by reading and re-reading and re-reading again the article I linked in post #2 and JRDelirious’ post #12.
Chavez has sometimes been referred to in this Forum as “Castro-Lite.” What of that? Uribe is Pinochet-Lite, and Castro-Lite is still far, far better than Pinochet-Lite, as Castro himself, for all his many and very horrible faults, is still far, far better than Pinochet. I should hope that’s not debatable even by your standards, smiling.
Latin-American politics. Ya gotta make allowances.
I see Chavez as mostly an incompetant with an inflated ego. His incompetance is overlooked because Venezuela has a lot of oil - which covers up a lot of poor economics - and because South America is not a crisis area - which excuses a lot of bad diplomacy. Chavez is going to miss George Bush after next year because Bush is one of the few people who acts like Chavez is important enough to be treated as a threat. It’s really going to drive Chavez nuts once he starts getting ignored.
