Remembering the Revolutionary Tourist

[Oele]

http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.nl/2014/02/remembering-revolutionary-tourist.html

This article reminds me of a few DU'ers.

A few quotes:

While the number of revolutionary tourists has diminished considerably, I'm amazed that even today, with a 56% inflation rate, more deaths per week than almost any country, and severe food shortages, there are still foreigners who blame shadow forces for what is due to the Venezuelan government's own mismanagement and incompetence. Admitting that the government failed would mean that their books and films were wrong, maybe making them question their worldviews. More importantly, they would have to face the fact that they created the international atmosphere that resulted in bloodshed and a monumental brain drain that starved the country of its finest minds.

The number one problem that I want to address--and as some one identifying as libertarian-left, with emphasis on left, this is a big one—is what I am seeing as the Left’s tendency in this case to allow *policy* to excuse lack of *legitimacy.* While I am willing to accept that the policies of Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela have lessened income inequality and reduced the oligarchic influence the extremely wealthy in Venezuela enjoyed prior to 1999, those policies cannot excuse the fact that the government of Venezuela surrendered its legitimacy when it refused to allow a recount of an election with a result margin of less than 1%. It further destroyed its legitimacy as it destroyed the ballots of that election to ensure a recount would never happen. It completely annihilated any remaining trace of legitimacy by killing demonstrators, who under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, are entitled to peaceably criticize their government. These are not the actions of a democratic government and the policies of any such government cannot excuse such atrocious actions.