Sheehan & Chavez
It’s interesting to see how stories converge. For example, yesterday Cindy Sheehan posted her “resignation letter as the ‘face’ of the American anti-war movement” :
The first conclusion is that I was the darling of the so-called left as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican Party. Of course, I was slandered and libeled by the right as a “tool” of the Democratic Party. This label was to marginalize me and my message. How could a woman have an original thought, or be working outside of our “two-party” system?However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the “left” started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used. I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of “right or left”, but “right and wrong.”
I am deemed a radical because I believe that partisan politics should be left to the wayside when hundreds of thousands of people are dying for a war based on lies that is supported by Democrats and Republican alike. It amazes me that people who are sharp on the issues and can zero in like a laser beam on lies, misrepresentations, and political expediency when it comes to one party refuse to recognize it in their own party. Blind party loyalty is dangerous whatever side it occurs on. People of the world look on us Americans as jokes because we allow our political leaders so much murderous latitude and if we don’t find alternatives to this corrupt “two” party system our Representative Republic will die and be replaced with what we are rapidly descending into with nary a check or balance: a fascist corporate wasteland. I am demonized because I don’t see party affiliation or nationality when I look at a person, I see that person’s heart. If someone looks, dresses, acts, talks and votes like a Republican, then why do they deserve support just because he/she calls him/herself a Democrat?
First of all, good for her. Many Democrats have been incredibly hypocritical lately when it comes to the war. Cindy Sheehan doesn’t deserve a lot of the flak that she’s received from either side of the aisle. Her loyalty is to the anti-war movement, not any particular party, so kudos to her for avoiding the pressure to become a Democratic partisan.
Having said that, you can count me among those whose opinion of Cindy Sheehan has soured considerably since the “Camp Casey” protests. It all goes back to when she appeared alongside Hugo Chavez and praised him for “supporting life and peace” :
If Sheehan is sincere when she says “when I look at a person, I see that person’s heart”, then I seriously question her judgment. Did/Does she know anything about Chavez beyond the fact that he’s a fellow Bush-basher? When this first happened, I wrote a couple of posts bashing Sheehan for her appearance with (military coup leader) Chavez. As far as I’m concerned, if you’re leader in a movement that criticizes the President, aligning yourself with someone who made it a crime to criticize the President is the very height of hypocrisy. If Sheehan tried to set up a “Camp Casey” in Caracas, she’d be thrown in jail.
Last year, I concluded my last Chavez post by writing :
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?
Just this year, we’ve seen Chavez granted the power to rule by decree (would you trust George Bush with this power?), worked towards state control of energy and telecommunications, threatened to take over Venezuela’s banks, and over the weekend has shut down a media outlet critical of the government (a move Human Rights Watch calls “a serious blow to freedom of expression”). Chavez’s defenders will endlessly bring up the specter of the 2002 coup attempt to defend some truly indefensible policies, but despotic power-grabs are the antithesis of democracy.
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Greg, did you notice that the headline on the energy story you linked to says: “Amicable takeover of Venezuela’s top electric company buoys markets”? And that sccording to the same story the telecom had been trying to sell its shares, as well? Or that the oil companies Chavez “nationalized” were paid market rate for their shares and they’d been geting away with running portions of their operations outside of the state oil system because the oil had been classified as “coal” (http://www.borev.net/2007/02/it_doesnt_take_a_chemist_to_fi.html)?
If you can (firewall) read Victor Navasky’s account of a CPJ fact-finding trip to investigate the impending shut-down of RCTV. http://www.thenation.com/docprem.mhtml?i=20070226&s=navasky
Comment by darrelplant — May 29, 2007 @ 2:59 pm
Sheehan’s point was valid then and it’s only increased in validity since. She wasn’t saying Chavez is anybody’s sweetheart and no leftist should be naive enough to expect him to be. She was, however, pointing out the ugly truth that there is no negative activity in which Hugo Chavez has engaged as a “repressive dictator” that George W. Bush hasn’t also indulged himself in *his* role of “Leader of the Free World” and that it was the differences that shamed a great nation.
Rule by decree? Mr. Bush has had a de facto rule by decree since he was first “elected”. This regime has done just what it pleased in the face of huge public disapproval time and again. If they couldn’t get their way through fear-mongering, lies and intimidation, they simply went ahead and did it anyway. Americans “sent a message” in the last election — Mr. Bush vetoed it and got his approprations bill.
Stacking the courts? Can any American really want to start throwing stones at *that* glass house? Same goes for posting Human Rights Watch statements. The USA has a link all it’s own on the site’s sidebar. Sadly, my nation does not because we are not important enough, but our record of shame can be found with a search
http://search.hrw.org/search?btnG=Google%2BSearch&output=xml_no_dtd&sort=date_3AD_3AL_3Ad1&client=hrw_frontend&num=10&proxystylesheet=hrw_frontend&oe=UTF-8&site=default_collection&ie=UTF-8&q=Canada&GO.x=30&GO.y=11
Nationalized petroleum industry? Horror of horrors! Allowing the people who actually *live* in a country to benefit from that country’s resource base? Madness. Every good economist knows that petro-dollars flow one way — AWAY from the people into the pockets of the deserving few.
Take the banks out of the World Bank and the I.M.F.? Again, madness! The benefits of these agencies to third world prosperity is clear from the record. If this idea catches on, before we know it there might not *be* a Third World anymore and then where will we be?
The T.V. station was not “shut down”. It was refused renewal of a license 5 years after the coup. Any real “oppressive dictator” would have marched those troops in the next morning after regaining control; first thing, 7 a.m. Now check the FCC record on granting and renewing broadcasting licenses; specifically to leftist media. Better still, ask the boys at Al Jazeera. The Bagdhad office.
Now I’m going to be tiresome and raise a spectre. Imagine what would happen in the good ol’ U.S. of A. if armed insurrectionists had taken control of the White House for any period of time with the collusion of any media network. Look at how many rights, liberties and freedoms your government has taken away in the last few years just from two planes hitting two buildings. Bill Maher was taken off the air for saying that that took a certain amount of resolve.
Given all these similarities between the Chavez and Bush administrations, providing free medical care, and fighting poverty in real, tangible ways should give food for thought to everybody; particularly those of us who *call* ourselves leftist. Instead, we take these things and set them aside as a given and allow the debate to focus on the negative.
When this first happened I bashed your TMW bashing of Sheenan (http://thismodernworld.com/2666#comment-1165) I see no reason to change my opinion today. The “leftists” who seek to distance themselves from Ms. Sheenan for her “bad judgement” are actually more worried about defending themselves from Republican/rightwing attack dogs. Figures like Chavez and Castro are tough to defend because they test our beliefs. It’s much easier and safer to push the whole thing aside, particularly with elections in the wind.
The question is, do you believe in the things you post or not? Poverty, peace, universal medical, etc. Are these things worth working for? Or is it just talk designed to get Democrats elected? Is it worth seeing within context strongarm tactics which are analogous or identical to crimes committed by your own government, to say nothing about ignored atrocities committed by other “friendly” regimes? Isn’t accepting the inevitable barbs from Michelle Malkin part of the deal?
Speaking of Michelle, something I would expect her to say would be “If Sheehan tried to set up a “Camp Casey” in Caracas, she’d be thrown in jail”, not you. That’s almost a direct quote of what they yelled at us from the sidelines at the anti-war demos. If we did this under Saddam he’d round us up for the rape rooms. Try and imagine how it sounded coming from you.
Comment by Bob — May 30, 2007 @ 10:50 am
Sheehan made a huge blunder by meeting and schmoozing with Chavez. To your average American who knows about her–but not about all of these finer points–she’s the modern-day equivalent of Hanoi Jane.
She lost her focus. People started to wonder what the hell she stood for. It was almost as though her son–a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq–had become an afterthought.
Comment by Doobie — May 30, 2007 @ 10:05 pm
Doobie, you’re right. In terms of media management it was a mistake. But where do you stand morally? Or do you condemn her just for making the mistake? If so, don’t you think that’s fickle and judgemental?
Comment by me — May 31, 2007 @ 6:03 am