More Chavez Bashing
The Hugo Chavez post I did last week has inspired some really strong debate. Since the original thread seems to be slowing down and there’s a few points I want to address, I’m going to do it here. First of all, with all of the comments that were made, this is the one that really pissed me off :
Now, if Greg is so gullible that all Bush has to do is shout “Hey! Look over there! A Commewnist Dictator!”, then Greg should spare himself the outrage and concern and start enjoying the wine women and song (such as it is) of a flag-waving BigMac-eating American life. There is no point in worrying about what the Democrats should have said if you endorse the proposition that Faux News, in conjunction with the Republican Congress, should be able to form an oligarchy to bring down elected governments.
Not only is this a cheap shot, but it’s complete bullshit. Anyone who thinks I’m falling for Bush Administration propaganda hasn’t read very much of this site. I don’t care what George Bush and his ilk say about Chavez and to claim that my opinions are based on the anti-communist shrieks coming from Washington is completely off-base.
As I explained in an obviously overlooked comment at TMW, my views on Chavez were formed in part by the conversations I’ve had with my Venezuelan relatives over the summer. To them, Chavez is a man whose heart is in the right place, but isn’t doing nearly enough to close the gap between the poor and rich. His various social programs to aid the poor (which I made a point of including in my last post) by helping alleviate the burden of poverty, but don’t do nearly enough to lift people out of the barrios. And this is coming from self-described socialists who benefitted from social programs during the tenure of Venezula’s first great president, Rómulo Betancourt.
Here’s another comment that I found absurd :
I think the Human Rights Watch may take the decision out of context considering most of the media in Venezuala is fanatically anti-Chavez and backed by oil interest and the corporate lobby.
So the fact that the media is anti-Chavez justifies having a repressive law that strengthens penalties against journalists who disrespect the government? It’s unbelievable to me how many liberals are willing to be apologists for a law that is indefensible on its face. The fact that the law may not have been applied yet certainly sets a curious standard that I doubt many of you would be willing to apply at home. Is Bush’s illegal wiretapping acceptable until we can prove it’s been used against innocent people? Is the Patriot Act acceptable in the context of 9/11 until the President actually exercises the abusive the powers that he’s been granted? Punishing political critics is wrong and you shouldn’t need to wait until someone’s being oppressed to point it out.
Additionally, the defenders of the media law sure do paint an unrealistic portrayal of Venezuela. To them, the media’s unified opposition to Chavez makes him the underdog against the big, evil corporate influence who can’t get his message out, but reminders of Chavez’s enormous popularity among the poor are everywhere. The most obvious example I saw when I was there was the word “NO” which was graffitied on almost every wall in the country. After a week of this ubiquitous message, I finally asked my brother-in-law what it meant. These were leftover messages of opposition to 2004′s failed recall election. The fact that this single word was immediately understood by the people of Venezuela as a pro-Chavez statement says all you need to know about the passion and strength of Chavez’s supporters.
Another thing that’s odd to me is the frequent references to the 2002 coup as justification for the media law. Now I’m no supporter of military coups, but the implication that Chavez is some paragon of democratic values overlooks the incident that brought him to prominence in the first place :
After an extended period of popular dissatisfaction and economic decline under the neoliberal administration of Carlos Andrés Pérez, Chávez made extensive preparations for a military-civilian coup d’état Initially planned for December, Chávez delayed the MBR-200 coup until the early twilight hours of February 4, 1992. On that date, five army units under Chávez’s command barreled into urban Caracas with the mission of assaulting and overwhelming key military and communications installations throughout the city, including the Miraflores presidential palace, the defense ministry, La Carlota military airport, and the Historical Museum. Chávez’s ultimate goal was to intercept and take custody of Pérez before he returned to Miraflores from an overseas trip.
Yes, overthrowing democratically-elected governments is a bad thing, but I’m sure Chavez supporters will find ways to explain why it was okay in this particular case.
Look, I largely agree with the stated goals of Chavez’s “Bolivarian Revolution”, but after eight years of striving for, among other things, “economic self-sufficiency” and “equitable distribution of Venezuela’s vast oil revenues” I see a country that’s still got a shameful gap between the rich and poor and has devoted the majority of its anti-poverty efforts into programs that create what American conservatives derisively call a “welfare state”. I’m sure that last statement is gonna piss people off, so let let me throw more kindling on this fire by asking why so many normally skeptical people are willing to take Chavez’s statements at face value? The people I’ve talked to tend to see Chavez’s policies as an equal mix of benevolence and cynical pandering. After years of watching both parties in this country court their respective bases, I can see what they mean. Just like the GOP knows that the key to electoral dominance is kissing religious ass on even-numbered years, I have a feeling Chavez knows exactly who he has to keep happy if he wants to stay in power.
We could argue about this stuff endlessly, but let me just end by saying that Chavez’s friendship with Fidel Castro doesn’t inspire me to give him the benefit of the doubt. When you’re passing laws restricting press freedom while hanging out with a guy who’s got a long history of jailing dissidents, the idea that an oppressive policy is the result of some accidentally vague wording is pretty hard to swallow. The more likely explanation is that Chavez wants to hold onto power and is willing to trample over the rights of anyone who gets in the way of that goal, but as long as he says the right things and bashes George Bush, I’m sure all of these criticisms are just recycled propaganda, right?
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Hear, hear! Right on!
Comment by Ben — February 7, 2006 @ 2:03 pm
The media law was set up specifically to counter any calls for Chavez’s overthrow on major media outlets, was it not?
Just asking.
Comment by DUDACKATTACK!! — February 7, 2006 @ 2:08 pm
I have a feeling Chavez knows exactly who he has to keep happy if he wants to stay in power.
well, if that isn’t the definition of a politician(albeit a bit nietzschean) i’ll eat my hat.
btw, dudackattack it’s always hilarious to see other nations’ officials quote intricacies of US law to clueless american media.
Comment by almostinfamous — February 8, 2006 @ 4:30 am
Acknowledging that I am the author of the “commewnist” remark, as if anyone cared, I will proceed directly to some questions about the current post.
Remembering that the Chavez administration has dealt with a coup, a nationwide recall, and substantial sabotage of the oil industry during the past few years, exactly how much should they be doing to lessen the gap between the rich and the poor?
Now, I am about as wide-eyed as lazy radicals come, but surely there is some limit to the proportion of GDP that can be spent on change. And common sense would dictate that it might be 5%, probably no more than 10% of the GDP. For example, if you were to change all of our military spending to solar research, that would probably still be under 5% of the GDP.
Or, maybe more to the point, if the Chavistas were working harder to radically change the income distribution, wouldn’t there be even more suggestions that they are [unbalanced, crude, thugs, communists, etc etc- choose all you need]? And where do we get off pontificating, when our own national wealth distribution is becoming more unequal?
From what I see, Venezuela for many years was ruled by an oligarchy, of unionized oil workers and the white upper class, that very much resembled the rule of the PRI in Mexico. It appears that in the course of recent struggle, much of this oligarchy has been rooted out of the oil industry, and the funds they were siphoning off have to some extent been reclaimed for the state. If Chavez only regained some legitimate control of this sector, it would (or should) constitute a major shift in the rich-poor relationship.
IOW, if someone’s major beef with Chavez is that he’s not doing enough for the poor, let’s have a little more of the when and how. It seems plain to me that the Bushies would attack Venezuela if they could. and it’s time to set our bullsh*t detectors on ‘stun’.
Comment by serial catowner — February 8, 2006 @ 6:55 am
Your piece today indicates to me that you may have some “skin in the game” with respect to this matter. I can feel your pain.
I was one who did not agree with your original post. The reason being that there are instances occurring in this country by our government representatives (not just politicians) that are not far removed from the actions Chavez has made that you decry. From the hamstrung media to justifying warrantless wiretaps (which may be why the media is hamstrung) to this reported today at
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/ –
Criticize Bush, get investigated for sedition
It happened to Laura Berg, a Veterans Administration nurse who showed up for work one day to find government agents waiting for her.
The American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico wants the government to apologize to a nurse for seizing her computer and investigating her for “sedition” after she criticized the Bush administration.
Her crime?
Berg, a clinical nurse specialist, wrote a letter in September to a weekly Albuquerque newspaper criticizing how the administration handled Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq War. She urged people to “act forcefully” to remove an administration she said played games of “vicious deceit.”
The message is clear: If you are a government employee and you dare to criticize Dear Leader, you will be well and truly fucked.
(Wikipedia, by the way, has this to say about sedition: “The term is deprecated in most countries, though equivalent language may still be in use in totalitarian and fascist jurisdictions.”)
Greg, I respect your opinion and your right to express it (and you do so most eloquently I might add), so can we respect Cindy Sheehan’s?
Comment by metricpenny — February 8, 2006 @ 10:29 am
You know, the more you criticize him, the sounder my Roosevelt comparison sounds:
>As I explained in an obviously overlooked comment at TMW, my views on Chavez were formed in part by the conversations I’ve had with my Venezuelan relatives over the summer. To them, Chavez is a man whose heart is in the right place, but isn’t doing nearly enough to close the gap between the poor and rich. His various social programs to aid the poor (which I made a point of including in my last post) by helping alleviate the burden of poverty, but don’t do nearly enough to lift people out of the barrios.
This sounds so much like what old-time Communist relatives used to say about Roosevelt.
I can think of some things Chavez could to move faster on decreasing the gap between rich and poor. He could raise taxes on the rich and middle classes a good deal. He could start nationalizing profitable industries. He could repudiate Venezuelas debt. My feeling is none of these would be bad ideas if he could get away with them; but they would escalate U.S. opposition to him, and proably turn a lot European nations that are friendly or neutral towards him into enemies.
It seems sort of strange that you use his overwhelming popularity as an argument against his facing an emergency. I mean dude, the emergency is a possible overthrow by foreign enemies – popularity does not guard against that. I’m not defending the press law, but it is not like he does not face a press who supported an armed insurrection financed by foreign enemies. I don’t know many heads of state who would be as restrained in their reaction to this as Chavez has been.
And would you please stop playing the “guilt by association game”. He is playing footsie with dicators who can either provide direct material aid or increase the power of his oil leverage in various ways. The U.S. allied itself with Stalin to fight Hitler. Venezuela allies itself with all sorts of nasty people (in a much more limited way) to help stave off various types of economic and possibly even military attacks by the U.S.
In terms of his having been guilty of attempting a coup himself: I don’t know the history of that time, but what I do know is that he served his time for that and chose democratic path instead, and so far seems to have stuck to it. Maybe that experience is why he has treated the opposition who tried to overthrow him by military force with such leniency. I will note though, that Chavez’s right wing opposition does not seem to have followed the same trajectory. Having lost democratically they have consistently turned to undemocratic means, in the last elections, choosing a boycott – which is completely counterproductive if they expect to begin the slow process of building a political movement that might win elections against him, but makes perfect sense if they hope to gain foreign support to overthrow Chavez by force.
Comment by Gar Lipow — February 8, 2006 @ 3:55 pm
And furthermore…reading this post is like walking through a house where the floor in every room is slanted. With deference, I would suggest Greg should look at his foundations.
For example, when graffitti is widespread, I see it as an indiciation that the people doing it don’t feel the media they see are telling their side of the story.
As for fixing all the problems at once, let’s look at one case- the bridge failing on the main highway to the airport. It turns out that it has been known for about 25 years that the bridge was slowly failing and would need to be rebuilt. However, it seems that only since Chavez took power has any serious work been done on this problem.
And frankly, Greg just lost me with his bit about Chavez’s attempted coup. Chavez failed, served his time in jail, became a democratic politician, and rose to high office. What, if anything, does this prove? Is Portugese democracy worthless because it started with a coup by the Portugese officers to overthrow the Salazar dictatorship?
The point of the comment that angered Greg, which admittedly was an attempt at a triple-lux in a phone booth, was that if you’re living with slanted floors, don’t wear rollerskates. The slam on Venezuela comes from the AP, the NYT, the WaPo, and the second stomach of journalism that ruminates the original stories and repeats them. The Bushies just add the frosting.
If you buy into this, you might as well spare yourself the effort of trying to persuade the Dems to support human rights, deliver aid that actually helps poor people, or demand fair elections, because, just as sure as the Lord made little green apples, the “thuggish” Chavez with his “populist” manner will constitute a threat to us (probably something about terrorists in the cocaine business) and we’ll need to suspend (just temporarily you understand) our high ideals and deal with this terrible threat. The Dems have been there before and have a pretty shrewd idea about how all this will play out when the media mill starts grinding.
If you go along with this, save your energy, use it to learn how to play the banjo. It’ll still work when the power goes out.
Comment by serial catowner — February 8, 2006 @ 4:35 pm
This is, in all honesty, one of the funniest comments I’ve read in a while. You don’t know about one of the most important events in Chavez’z life, but you’re quick to assume that he had some sort of democratic epiphany while in jail? Priceless.
If you’re interested in reading about his coup attempt, click here. I dunno how much good it would do though. With the way you defend the law that allows the Venezuelan government to throw dissenters in jail, it seems to me that you’ve already made up your mind that anything unseemly about Chavez is excusable in one way or another.
Comment by greg — February 8, 2006 @ 4:36 pm
I was going to ignore this the first time it was mentioned, but this “served his time” thing is a bit of a whitewash. For his role in trying to overthrow the democratically-elected government of Venezuela, Chavez served two years before being pardoned. By contrast, let’s look at what Gar wrote about the 2002 coup organizers :
Once such “lenient” sentence is the 15 years Carlos Ortega will be spending in jail for his role in the labor disruption which served as a catalyst for the 2002 coup. If 15 years is “lenient”, then why are you patting Chavez on the back for serving only two?
The 1992 coup wasn’t against a dictatorship, it was against a democratic government. You have both freqently invoke the 2002 coup as a horrible event (which it is) that justifies horrible laws (which it doesn’t), but try to dismiss the 1992 coup as if it were some sort of character-building exercise.
Is the use of force to overthrow a democratically-elected government right or wrong? Is it okay to pass laws that make it legal to throw throw people in jail for criticizing their government? If you were consistent on these topics, you’d see that Chavez isn’t the saint you make him out to be.
Which slam is that? I don’t think he’s not the evil dictator the Bushies make him out to be either, but that was never the point of what I’ve written about Chavez. If you can’t wrap your head around the fact that my motivations for disliking Chavez are completely unrelated to anything I’ve seen or heard from the Bush Administration then that’s your problem, not mine.
Comment by greg — February 8, 2006 @ 5:35 pm
Greg I was familiar with Wikipedia article and stuff from a few other sources. What I am not familiar with is any serious scholarship on the subject. I guess maybe I have higher standards for “knowing” something like this than you do. The point is that after serving his time he has takena democratic path since. I never second guess politicians character. I take for granted that if you seek high office you probably have a streak of bastard. But even these superficial sources suggest he has acted with popular support and under the full rule of law.
In terms of law “jailing dissenters” I don’t remember defending it. I just put in perspective and pointed out that NO PEACEFUL DISSENTERS are actually in jail If he starts jailing peaceful opposition, that will be another point. I think you have to look at what he actually is doing, not what he might do.
But tell me, before you causually dismiss his having provocations, what do you think would happen to freedom of the press in most countries if there was a serious, nearly successful armed overthrow of the government, supported by 100% of the major media which acted entirely as propaganda for that armed insurrections. I don’t have to guess what would happen in the U.S. But what do you think would happen in say Denmark or Sweden or Finland in those circumstances? Do you think no law restricting freedom of the press would be passed. Mind you I would oppose this kind if press law there, and I’m against in Venezuela. He has created space for an alternative media so there is no longer a right wing monoply. He does not need a censorship law besides. But do you think any nation would react with total reason and fairness after a scare like that? Do you really expect sainthood of any leader?
I’m not defending the one bad law. I’m suggesting that none of the critiques one might make of Chavez justify treating him like a leper. This is not a case like Saddam, where we have to oppose invasion while also desisng the target. This is a democratically elected leader in nation which at the moment (and I make no prediction about tomorrow) has both more formal civil liberties than we have more civil liberties in practice that we have.
I made the case for this on a previous thread. Formally, under current court ruling Bush has more power to violate your civil liberties than Chavez has undere the new law. In practice he has used this formal power less than Bush has, and faces a vigorous opposition mainstream press – something that does not exist in the U.S/
Comment by Gar Lipow — February 8, 2006 @ 5:51 pm
Uh…what happens when you’re not passing laws that restrict press freedom while you hang around with a guy who has a long history of overthrowing democracies and sponsoring the murder of hundreds of thousands of people? You know, guys like Cheney and Rumsfeld (Indonesia, 1975) and Bush Sr (former CIA Director). Shouldn’t I be more worried about Tony Blair than I am about Chavez?
Ooops- my bad. Blair has been passing laws that restrict press freedom too. So I guess that analogy won’t work.
Comment by serial catowner — February 9, 2006 @ 9:48 am
And so we leave sweet Wiki-Waky, having possibly learned that adding kindling may produce more heat than light.
However, I found the discussion interesting, for I’ve learned that I have two standards- one for us and another for them. Yes, I do, and the reason is quite simple- I am a citizen of us, and an observer of tem.
For us, I advocate freedom of speech that would probably have Greg talking about “shouting fire in a crowded theater”. As far as I’m concerned, the War on (some)Drugs has been thiry years of the government shouting fire in a crowded theater. If we want to use that standard to limit the damage of free speech, we don’t need to muzzle the citizens- we can get 80% of our results by cutting the Drug War funding.
For them, I’m a relativist. Every culture has different ways and words, and the fact is, there are large parts of the world I don’t know enough about to tell them how to act. They might not even listen to me if I did.
I especially try to suspend judgement when the Republican clique that has endorsed so many dictatorships starts demanding Freedom. After thirty years of watching the American people get stampeded like a herd of the wild mustangs they aspire to be (gee haw!) sometimes it’s not too hard to see where this is going.
And if Greg is unembarrassed to share talking points with the Bushies, I am equally unembarrassed by Cindy Sheehan and Chavez. Frankly, they don’t represent me, and I’m sure that in a short time they will both be another hard-to-remember footnote to history.
Or maybe not. South America is a large continent that, until recently, excluded a half of the population from legislative deliberations. North America is a large continent with an unsustainable lifestyle. Quite probably, the American Century was the 20th century, not the 21st.
And something always comes ‘next’.
Comment by serial catowner — February 10, 2006 @ 6:03 am