Go back to one of BG’s earlier threads and I’m sure that he described him as a ‘Latin American version of Charlles De Gaulle’
This.
I expect Chavez’ party will be a major player in Venezuelan politics long, long after Chavez himself has passed from the scene; and it might even hold on to power as long as the PRI did in Mexico.
BTW, no, no Venezuelan election since 1998 has been ruled illegitimate by international observers.
And you know that must be true because Commies have never, ever been known to produce bogus statistics.
Seriously, why do so many otherwise intelligent people believe that numbers followed by the percentage symbol must be precise, certain, scientific facts? Like the Shadow, does the % sign possess the mysterious Oriental power to cloud men’s minds?
I happen to work with two sisters from Venezuela who still maintain contact with their family back in their home country.
It’s pretty widely accepted that Chavez gets re-elected because he uses the government’s oil money, and money from redistribution of wealth, to give freebies to the poor. They described roving vans which drove from location to location providing free health care to the poor. The doctors in said vans were apparently mostly Cuban, so when the poor would talk about going to the doctor, they would simply say “I’m going to the Cubans.”
Before you take me for a libertarian, I do think that free, government-sponsored health care is a good idea, but this is quite obviously a carrot provided to the poor to keep Chavez and his party in power. As long as he gives the poor enough kickbacks, they will always vote for him in lockstep at the expense of the middle and upper classes.
And the problem with that is that (as Margaret Thatcher might say) sooner or later he will run out of other people’s money. Then the game is up – not just for him, but for all of Venezuela.
The source in question is venezuelanalysis.com. It purports to be an independent organization. It could, of course, be a government mouthpiece – if you have a cite to that effect, bring it.
It would be rather embarrassing for him to deny it, since he’s started numerous threads about Chavez in the past. I’m not sure what he thinks about the man today (probably in the same ‘no true Scotsman’ viewpoint you seem to be leaning towards), but in the past he certainly seemed to have a thing for him.
It’s funny that you seem to be the only one who doesn’t know this, though perhaps BG hasn’t gotten on your radar wrt Venezuela and the lovely Chavez.
If he were only not an autocratic dictator, and instead a true servant of the people? Yeah, it’s sad that he isn’t, but don’t give up hope! I’m sure at some point a true socialist paragon of the people will emerge to lead the workers and peasants into paradise…or something. And after doing so, will then selflessly relinquish power and go back to hoeing turnips on the farm (or whatever powerful socialists do once they have lead the people to the promised lands and fulfilled their destiny). To be sure…
I agree, though I came to this conclusion several years ago.
Taken as an isolated case, you are quite correct. Taken with the mountains of evidence of other socialist saviors throughout history, however, one can detect a bit of a pattern.
As does the definition of ‘equality’ and ‘justice’ I’ve noticed.
Again, taken in isolation you have a good point. I don’t believe it’s a judgment on ‘socialism’ so much on socialist/communist oriented autocratic dictatorships that attempt to completely divorce themselves from any sort of market and instead insist on complete command economies dictated by fiat. Have you noticed that there aren’t a lot of examples of ANY sort of modern government that has been successful at that sort of thing? Isn’t that a curious thing?
-XT
Where’s the CIA when you need em? If we had Allen Dulles back, we would have:
-arranged a deal with some ambitious Venezuelan general
-arranged for arms shipments to the patriots
-set up a “suicide” for Chavez
A coup would solve a lot of problems.
After all, it’s worked out so well for us in the past…
-XT
Or you could, you know, just leave it alone and let them figure it our for themselves.
It would no doubt turn into a long term disaster, as usual. And what makes you think we have the right to do so? How would you feel if a foreign government did that to yours?
I thought the sentiment in those earlier threads was that Chavez is in the mold of Huey Long. I don’t see anything yet to change that impression, for better or worse.
Really? The collapse of the global economy due to an under regulated financial system or a severe environmental catastrophe due to under regulated oil companies (BP was cutting corners, that is why the well blew up) or a potential environmental calamity due to climate change which are being blocked by energy companies are not relevant compared to 80,000 tons of food rotting?
Who determines what is relevant and what isn’t? I want to talk to him/her. When did 80,000 tons of food become a bigger issue than collapsing the global economy?
I didn’t check the source, however the article said the WHO had commented on Venezuela’s childhood malnutrition issues. So if you conservatives don’t believe Venezuela’s government, you should at least believe the UN. If not, I can probably find Paul Begala saying the same thing somewhere. I have tons of trustworthy sources that conservatives love to listen to.
shhhhhhhhhhhh the *grown ups *are trying to bash socialism as a way to suggest that any socialism will cause a country to come apart at the seams.
This way, when someone mentions universal health care, they can point to Venezuela and say, “SEE, THIS IS WHAT SOCIALISM DOES!!!111one”
VHeadline (News and Views about Venezuela), supported Chavez during the the coup against him, later and recently they have posted many pieces **against **Chavez, you see, they supported Chavez mostly because they supported democracy, Chavez was not the main reason why they supported him before.
Anyhow, editors at Vheadline point out that:
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=93236
There is also the possibility that the right wing media in Venezuela has once again poisoned the news coming from there:
It’s true Chavez does give lots of freebies away to the poor. Previous Venezuelan governments made sure that a tiny elite got all the benefits of Venezuela’s oil and the poor got absolutely fuck all. chavez has brought millions of people electrification, (yes, electricity for the first time), healthcare, education, you name it. This is supposed to be a bad thing?
So even if Hugo loses a future election he’s changed the face of venezuelan politics forever. The people won’t stand for a tiny minority stealing all the goodies again. And even the tiny minority know it. Look at the main election pledge of the guy who ran in opposition to Chavez the last time the elite put a candidate up. (Chavez ran unoppposed in (regional?) elections one time because the opposition knew they’d take such a beating it would make him look good and give him a huge mandate so they subverted the democratic process and refused to run a candidate while calling his election unfair). Anyway, the main oppositon pledge last time they ran a candidate :
Basically a benefits card transferring oil money direct to the individual. Everybody in Venezuela would have got one and it would have paid a living wage to everybody according to the pledge. But even though the opposition has now shifted so far to the left, Hugo’s enduring legacy in Venezuelan politics, the country still voted for Hugo.
And yes the food price control thing is dumb but every government has struggled mightily with inflation and Hugo is no different, at least he’s still trying to keep food affordable, previous governments didn’t give a shit. All that oil money creates big demand, Venezuela has always had big problems with inflation :
http://venezuelanalysis.com/images/2007/03/venezuela_inflation.gif
High oil prices mean it’s going to go up even if the economy is doing really well otherwise. Back in the seventies during the last high oil price era the government manages to have runaway inflation and reduce everybosy’s living standards at a faster rate than people in sub-Saharan Africa were experiencing. Chavez has worked miracles compared to those guys.
And yeah, people bashing Chavez for massive corruption and waste and what have you. Like Venezuela was Switzerland before Hugo took over.
Class warfare would probably reverse that. Turn the middle class against the poor, the natives against the foreigners, the religious against the secularists, etc. then use those divisions to get people to vote for the economic interest of the elite. It works in the US, I’m sure it would work in Venezuela too (people vote because they dislike civil rights and want ‘in god we trust’ on the dollar and they get estate tax cuts and corporate tax cuts by the legislators they vote for because of it). In the US we used to be much further to the left too. LBJ was much further to the left than Obama, and opposition figures like Nixon were themselves arguably further to the left than current mainstream representatives of the left.
So this concept that Venezuela will remain to the left is something that has to be waited out and seen.
Oooh, when do we get to use violence to adjudicate another nation’s civil conflicts? That’s my favorite part of this process. The build up is alright, but the payoff is the best part. I’m immature like that.
Tried and failed. Not even a courtesy mulligan.
It’s worth noting that the Socialist International’s Venezuelan member parties are Democratic Action and the Movement for Socialism, and both are in opposition right now.