Attention sane folks: Could somebody explain the Chavez love to me

[LittleClarkie]

The guy appears to have his good points and his bad. From what I read of his bio at BBC News, it sounds like he came to power on a bunch of promises he's largely not fulfilled. Sounds familiar, actually.

So, is he the greatest thing since sliced bread, or does he have flaws that perhaps the more left among us aren't seeing.

Discuss for the enlightenment of the newbie, if you would.

[TayTay]

1. Start here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Chavez

And here: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=45&ItemID=6026


I know that we in here don't universally love Greg Palast, but he is dead-on in his assessment of the IMF and the problems with the US and third-word countries in debt. Venezuela has not taken the US bait and is openly hostile to the Bush Admin.

That's reason enough for some LFs to hate him.

[LittleClarkie]

2. I just realized who he reminds me of

Boy would THAT go over out on the big board, eh? :sarcasm:

What's an LF?

I see according to Wiki, that Chavez is not liked much by the affluent, as he's appropriating their stuff, but is not liked much by the unions either.

That seemed strange to me, to have a leftist leader not getting along with the unions.

Thanks for the info.

[Mass]

4. Not necessarily. Big whigs in unions are all about power as well

If Chavez has been trying to touch to their power, they probably did not like it. I don't know enough about the situation in Venezuela to know whether he was right or not, but ...

As for the comparison, it is a fairly good one, and Peron was not unanimously bad for Argentina. In comparison to the other leaders of the XX century in Argentina, he was even not that bad. What came later with the Junta was really, really bad.

[LittleClarkie]

6. Indeed, he was something of a populist, with union backing to boot

See what being a fan of musicals can do to you? I know more about Juan and Eva Peron than your average human being.

[Mass]

3. Chavez is far from perfect, but he is the elected leader of his country

and his major default as far as the Bush administration is concerned is that he intends that his country's resources will benefit to his country.

From Wikipedia:

Chávez has redirected the focus of PDVSA, Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, by bringing it more closely under the direction of the Energy Ministry. He has also attempted to repatriate more oil funds to Venezuela by raising royalty percentages on joint extraction contracts that are payable to Venezuela.

the main reason why Chavez is disliked by the WH, which is the main reason why some people like him.

The other thing is that, as Castro in Cuba, his record is not unanimously bad. Since he has been in power, a lot of things have changed in Venezuela, and some people are unhappy to have lost some power.

[TayTay]

5. Ture. but the Bushes hate him because he won't play ball

The usual Latin American dealings with the US are:

Country needs to borrow money.
They get it with conditions from the IMF And Wall Street
They can't pay the onerous interest and wind up in default and under the command of the IMF

IMF orders cuts in pay, restrictions on unions, orders the state to sell off assets, such as water, and such. big international cartels can come in and buy up the assets cheaply. Country never makes enough money to get out of debt.

See Confessions of an Economic Hit Man http://www.economichitman.com/ Chavez avoided this, Venezeula is doing much better than most nations in Latin AMerica and is semi-socialist. (Sort of.) This pisses off the economic neo-cons. They hate him.

LF = Lefty Freepers hate * so much that they love anyone who hates *.

[beachmom]

7. The enemy of your enemy isn't necessarily your friend

Just because the Bush WH is against Chavez doesn't mean lefties or Democrats should be for him. He is democratically elected now, but we'll see down the road if he's willing to step down.

Democracy Now! fawns all over him, which is one of the reasons why I stopped watching it (Amy Goodman hates Kerry, too), because I think they are very naive. One should be cautious with a man with such an ego, and an eagerness to be all cushy with Castro.

I guess that sums it up for me. I am very cautious about Chavez. The WH royally screwed up by appearing to back (and maybe help?) the failed coup to overthrow him in '02. I think this is why a lot of Lefties are drawn to him. I'm suspicious. There's a fine line between regulating corporations to protect the people with simply seizing private property that belongs to someone else and calling it "Revolution". I guess that's when the capitalist side of me comes out, and I'm thinking "enough already with the workers of the world unite riff raff". Don't forget that Stalin, who may have been responsible for as many as 40 million deaths, was a Leftist dictator. I could be wrong about him, but the jury is still out on him, and the * administration have once again screwed up U.S. diplomacy, so if Chavez DOES violate international law, they'll look like the boy who cried wolf.

[LittleClarkie]

8. I wondered if it was like this for Ortega too

as far as the left getting all giddy and such.

There's an article on the board from Counterpunch that's kind of fawning over Chavez for his work with the American poor. I dunno either. Sort of waiting and seeing.

But I don't care much for Counterpunch. At all. So I won't take their word for much.

[Mass]

10. Counterpunch is pretty extreme

but Ortega was not that bad either.

In this country, we see these guys thru the filter of the MSM, but Ortega was not worse than those who followed him and arguably better.

[MH1]

21. Ortega overthrew the dictator Somoza

so I would say there was some reason for giddiness. Nicaragua is now a democracy, which means Ortega and the Sandinistas brought some good to that country.

However like most human beings, Ortega is a mixed bag. There have been some nasty allegations, but how do we know what is trumped up? How do we know what charges were created and spread by funding from the US?

For more on Ortega:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ortega

and in his own words:

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/18/interviews/ortega/

< snip >

On the Sandinistas' 1990 electoral defeat:

< The United States > invaded Panama, which had a great influence on the elections in our country -- because this happened two months before the 1990 elections, and it broke up the support we had and the votes we had accumulated during the campaign. In December we had 47 percent support, with two months' campaigning still to do; the invasion of Panama took place on December 23rd. And when we did a poll the following January, we had come down 10 points to 37 percent --- by which time we were one month away from the elections. ...

It wasn't a completely free election because there was open interference from the United States, from President Bush, in the form of financial and political support to our opponents, as well as threats that the blockade would not be lifted and all the rest of it if UNO didn't win. The decisive moment was the invasion of Panama.

As for Counterpunch, recently I ran across the hatchet jobs Alexander Cockburn was doing on Kerry even in the last weeks before the election. Almost made me cancel my Nation subscription (they publish Asshat Cockburn too), but I'm still thinking about that. I don't know what Counterpunch is really trying to do, but they certainly weren't helping last year.

[JI7]

22. Counterpunch is a Democrat hating site run by right wingers and Nader

people.

they have articles attacking Kucinich also.

[MH1]

23. Ah-ha!

I knew about the Naderites (that's obvious) but not the right-wingers supporting it. Seriously, if that is true, why doesn't the Nation drop Cockburn then, unless he disassociates from Counterpunch? (Assuming they are posting his stuff with permission. I'm not going to trouble to look right now but it sure looked like he had a comfy home set up there.)

[Mass]

9. Stalin was not a leftist dictator. He was a dictator, period.

I cant tell you what Chavez will turn out to be, but I think it is safe to say that the more the US will oppose him because he does not want to play a game that will hurt his country, the worst the situation will become (either because they will make another Castro of him or another Allende).

What is it with American Republican President that they cant understand other leaders should fight for their countries and not for large multinational companies.

[LittleClarkie]

11. A friend and I were talking about Stalin and Hitler

Same kind of dictator, one from the left and one from the right. But they looked pretty much the same no?

It fit conveniently into my image of the political spectrum as being a circle. My friend and I decided that Hitler and Stalin were standing right next to each other on that spectrum, but with their backs turned. They could shake hands if they ever turned around, they were that close.

Oddly, I picture Nader and Buchannan the same way. "Hiya Ralph" "How's it hangin' Pat."

[Mass]

12. I have to disagree with you

They certainly both were dictators, and responsible for a lot of death. They both got allied to invade Poland.

However, there is another dimension to Hitler: the systematic killing of people on the simple basis of an ethnic characteristic.

The comparison of Stalin and Hitler totally forgets this dimension and we should be very careful of that.

[globalvillage]

13. I made the mistake of tangling with the Chavez supporters in GD

Re the Rand Beers statement on the Kerry website after Chavez announced his support of Sen Kerry in the election.
I said that I though Kerry was right to distance himself from the endorsement, and you would have thought I'd confessed to a crime.
Needless to say, it was quite ugly.

[karynnj]

14. I saw some of that

I think the problem with some of the far LW is that they see the word as one dimensionally as the RW does. I would give Kerry credit for knowing what is going on in Central America - his statements on CAFTA were absolutely wonderful. It's clear he has a working knowledge of who is doing what (and to what effect).

If he had any misgivings, he needed someone in his campaign to distance him. I think it was incredibly stupid of Chavez to endorse Kerry if he really liked him.

[Mass]

15. I remember that,

They did not seem to understand that it was improper for any foreign leader to interfere in the election. This is incredibly stupid and Kerry was right to distance himself from that.

I also think that something extraordinarily studpid was amde in Ohio when British people started to write to Ohio voters telling them to vote for Kerry. I am afraid that he may have lost a number of swing votes simply on the fact that people did not like to be told how to vote by foreigners (I am not sure they liked having volunteers from MA, TX, or CA telling them that either and that may have been the weakness of the Democratic Party, but I am sure that for some, foreigners writing to them to vote for Kerry was the deciding point to vote for Bush).

[MH1]

18. Agreed.

I just posted a long answer to the o.p. explaining why many of us support Chavez, but I agree with your post here about how the appearance of foreign interference hurt Kerry.

I remember groaning when I heard that Chavez endorsed Kerry. "C'mon Hugo, that was obvious to any Americans who appreciate your policies, and we were really hoping the anti-Chavez and clueless sets wouldn't figure it out. Way to go, dude."

[MH1]

16. Some thoughts on Chavez

I am very interested in Chavez and tentatively a strong supporter, which means this is one of those areas where I apparently part political company with Kerry.

First of all, the "tentatively" is because there is a lot I don't know, and some of the allegations against Chavez are ugly enough they might break my support for him. But if the choices are a brutal dictator who will only enrich the already wealthy, vs. a sort-of dictator who is using his power to improve the lot of the poor even just a little, I'll take the latter. (Just like if a US election came down to - ugh - Lieberman vs Bush, yes I would vote Lieberman, and do my best to convince others too.)

Venezuela has a huge economic polarization (far worse than what we have here), and it is due to years of economic abuse by the rich. Chavez' policies seek to reduce that polarization and create more opportunities for poeple who have not had them.

One policy that has been controversial is bringing in Cuban doctors (medical students?) to help provide health care to the poor. I saw an article where some Venezuelan doctors were complaining that the Cuban doctors were taking away their jobs. But, the reason for the policy in the first place was that the poor were not getting adequate health care. Were the Venezuelan doctors trying to make American-doctor salaries, and not serving those who couldn't pay enough? I don't know, but that would be my suspicion.

Regarding land reform: If someone owns a large amount of land in a country like Venezuela, how do you think they came by that land? I can pretty much guarantee that the current owner's ancestors (if not the current owner him or her self) stole it or otherwise abused someone else to obtain it. Just like many, if not all, of the huge fortunes in this country. I'm not a communist - I don't believe that everything everyone owns should be handed over to the government for redistribution - but dammit, if you happen to own massive assets by sheer luck of birth or by foul play, stop bitching if the government raises your taxes to help people in abject poverty deal with the necessities of life. And if by "taxes" that means you have to let some poor farmer farm on 1/100th of your land, well that's just tough. When other people are starving and you are crying because you are losing some material property that you don't even friggin' need, I just can't muster any sympathy. And everything I've seen about Chavez' land reform seems to depict a program that isn't much more onerous than I described. Plus, the land ownership disparity in Venezuela is absolutely outrageous. Gee, how did it get that way? So my feeling is, maybe land reform is the best approach.

Now, I'm not too hung up on Kerry's position here because I am sure he would agree that we should not be in the business of overthrowing elected governments, even if we don't like them. I am more concerned about where I think he stands on the drug war - i.e. basically pro drug war - can anyone show me I'm wrong? If he supports Plan Colombia, that's a big downer. But it's clearly not a litmus test issue for me or I would know that answer. And in Kerry's case I would chalk up a pro-drug war stance to the experiences he presumably had in Vietnam and afterward, seeing the results of drug abuse and addiction. I can understand if that experience warped his perception of the issue a bit.

The drug war thing comes back to Venezuela because (I believe) Chavez is starting to rebel against the Plan Colombia paradigm, or already has. In other words, he is refusing U.S. dictates about how to control drug production in his country. Considering the awful results of the US drug war in other South American countries, I also applaud Chavez on this, and can see where it puts him at odds with Kerry.

These are just a few of the reasons many liberals like myself appreciate Chavez, and hope that the tales of him being "thuggish" are just more misinformation from the US media misinformation factory. (Really, we are in no position to know.) Given what we would like to believe about Chavez, those who tend toward hero-worship and don't have other reasons to tolerate Kerry's apparent anti-Chavez statements, will naturally bash Kerry about it. I think they are wrong - I strongly support Kerry despite what I believe to be his positions relative to Chavez and the drug war, and I think those positions are far less evil than those of most Republicans anyway - but I do understand the bashing of him on this issue. I just wish those GD'ers would get some perspective and go after the real villains in this country, and stop picking nits with good Democrats like Kerry.


(Whew. I didn't intend to write such a long post, but well, there it is.)

[Mass]

17. Excellent analysis, MH1.

I agree with you on most of what you say.

[MH1]

24. Thanks !

:hi:

[JI7]

19. the thing is that Chavez seemed to get it

i told them that Chavez doesn't need Kerry to come out in support of him or anything he only needs Kerry to get elected. that's why he didn't have any issues with Kerry being critical of him. he can handle disagreements. and he knows Kerry would never try to get rid of him as the Bush administration did.

and Kerry did speak out against the Bush administration's attempt to get rid of Chavez just as he did with Aristide.

on edit, i meant Chavez not Castro.

[MH1]

20. Exactly.

I think Chavez is smarter than some folks give him credit for. Except I still think he blew it by publicly endorsing Kerry.

And I should clarify that I'm a bit sketchy on Kerry's exact positions here. I just can't see Kerry being worse than any of the likely alternatives (including on the Dem side) and there are so many other areas where he is very good, that I just kind of stuck my head in the sand on this one and trusted his policies would at least be rational, if not quite what I would like. And right now rational would be a huge improvement.

[karynnj]

25. On the drug war stuff

It was not just Vietnam and afterward. He was concerned with the drugs and money laundering in Central America itself. Someone posted recently an article on Kerry's work that established that Noriega was drug running.

He was different than the Bushes (pere et fils) because he really did care.

[beachmom]

26. Thanks for the post MH1, which was very interesting and insightful

although I think I am in disagreement with you and Mass. For the sake of argument, let's say that the Heinz family stole land and persecuted workers in order to become successful in the 19th century, are you telling me that the government can tell Teresa that because of past wrongs, she must yield some of her land to farmers, pay an extremely high tax (say, 60%), and tough luck to her, because she's rich and can afford it. Sorry, but this is where I depart from the Left. Yes, Teresa should pay a higher tax rate than us (progressive tax system), but I believe in havng a reasonable cap on taxes, but not as low as the * tax cuts, to a rate like how it was in the 90s. Otherwise, why would anyone be motivated to work hard and become successful, when their work and wealth that they created is simply going to be taken away from them or their heirs? Does this make me a DLCer? I mean, what happened in Zimbabwee under that awful Mugabee, where white farmers who forced off their land is just disgusting. Now people in that country are starving because no one knows how to grow food, now that the landowners are gone. Yes, reform is in order in these countries so that a middle class can be created, but revolution like that usually causes needless suffering that didn't have to happen.

As far as Hitler and Stalin go, I think it is equally dangerous to say one was more evil than the other. Obviously, one was more clever and sane than the other (Stalin), and knew when to stop, and therefore preserve his empire. I recommend a book "Hitler and Stalin" by that author Bullock (sorry can't remember his first name). Hitler killed an incredibly large amount of people in a short period of time, whereas Stalin killed more at a leisurely pace over the course of 20 years, and killed more -- 40 million. As Nazism is an extreme right wing ideology, communism is an extreme left wing ideology. In many ways, Stalin was more ruthless within his own government, purging the entire military leadership in the late '30s. When the military started turning on Hitler, he regretted not doing what Stalin did. Yes, Hitler represents a particular evil, one of killing people simply for their ethnic background, but Stalin killed people based on their economic status (like if they were entrepeneuers) or simply if they were not loyal enough to him or his particular form of communism. I may add that there was overlap, because a lot of the beaurgeois who Stalin sent to the Gulags or Siberia were Jewish, and who ultimately died. He even sent to gulags Russian POWs captured by the Germans after the battle of Stalingrad, because he was suspicious that they had spent too much time in German hands and were no longer loyal. Talk about not supporting the troops!

Acknowledging that Stalin was EXTREMELY evil does not lessen the evil Hitler did nor the particular horror of the Holocaust. And one could argue that since Hitler started WWII (along with Japan) he ultimately is responsible for more deaths -- the 50 million who died in that horrible war.

[MH1]

27. Yes, I am saying that

people who have inherited huge estates which came to their family by exploitation of others, ought to disburse at least some portion of that estate in a way that helps alleviate the suffering caused to the current generation by the exploitation of their ancestors.

BUT to your implied point that Teresa (e.g.) has done nothing herself to exploit others, just happened to inherit mega-wealth: I would say that any tax or appropriation should be fairly applied to all in her situation, gradual, and gentle in the sense of not reducing someone to pauper status themself just because they happened to be born rich. The problem is, if wealth accumulation and economic polarization become too out of control, a so-called "revolution" could happen, which will not be gradual or gentle, and probably will aim to punish people rather than correct a situation. I think folks like Teresa (e.g.) are better off with policies that prevent the situation from getting to the point of violent revolution.

Regarding Mugabe's actions: what we heard in the Western media speaks of a vile brutal dictator. (Notice, though, that we didn't invade Zimbabwe to bring them Freedom™). BUT I have seen other sources (outside the Western media) that note that the white farmers were offered compensation to pack up and leave, and the ones murdered and brutalized were the ones that didn't accept it. So, I would be interested to hear more of the "rest of the story" on that one. Clearly Mugabe's ultimate tactics were horrible and his policy stupid and failed (yeah, let's kill or deport everyone who actually knows how to farm. Riiigggghhhht.) So I am not condoning (NOT AT ALL!!) what has been done over there. Just saying there is another side to this story, as with any other. If you really want to hear about brutality and horror, you might want to read some African perspectives on the colonialization of their continent. And maybe, if you can find it, some of the other side's arguments about how white people have oppressed the natives in Zimbabwe until Mugabe took over. Heck, just think back to apartheid in South Africa.

All that said, having the government appropriate and redistribute assets is an ugly and very dangerous policy. I would much prefer that accumulation of wealth be controlled by such things as estate taxes and other rational policies about property, so that in a country such as ours we never have any reason to go there.

(as for your ideas on this topic making you "a DLC'er" - a) probably not; and b) who cares? The DLC has some valid points. As does the Green party. If anyone tries to fit me exclusively into one of those templates, they will fail. I suspect it is much the same with you. ;-) )

[TayTay]

28. The argument is not proceeding from common ground.

A lot of the wealthy landowners got their land through almost colonial grants. This is not land acquired through the free market system or through capitalism. It is land held in oligarchical trusts for ages and ages. The poor are shut out of becoming landowners, which also prevents the rise of a prosperous middle class as a buffer between rich and poor.

In order for this to have an analogous pattern in America, imagine if Virginia or Massachusetts had nearly 3/4 of the colonial land locked up in just a few families since colonial times. No one could arrange to buy or sell this property because it was 'granted' exclusively to a few favored families. The landowners, through all the long history of the VA or MA have the exclusive rights to develop or farm this property. This would have prevented the history of America as you know it.

The land grants have to be opened up. We are not talking about earned land, we are talking about a system of inheritance that freezes class structure in place and creates the awful conditions that keep the poor from creating their own wealth. This is antithetical to our system. (Well, mostly. The Bushies like this system, sigh!)