Ted Rall on Hugo Chavez
Damn those commies.
(via robotwisdom)
When the hated despots of nations like Saudi Arabia and Kazakhstan loot their countries' treasuries, transfer their oil wealth to personal Swiss bank accounts and use the rest to finance (in the House of Saud's case) terrorist extremists, American politicians praise them as trusted friends and allies. But when a democratically elected populist president uses Venezuela's oil profits to lift poor people out of poverty, they accuse him of pandering.more...
(via robotwisdom)
posted by $!# at 4/13/2006 10:53:00 AM
5 Comments:
Yes, the statement above is true, but the article it links to has a misleading title. Chavez's socialism isn't necessarily successful. It's funded by oil revunues that aren't sustainable--under his rule Venezuela's economy remains precariously dependent on oil, poverty rates have not meaningfully been addressed, corruption remains pervasive. It's easy to agree with Chavez's rhetoric. But his modest improvements from previous rulers of that country remain far shy of successful, and in time will prove to be not much of a model at all, I'm afraid.
Yeah, Ted Rall isn't exactly a genius economist or political scientist.
But what's interesting to me (and what I think he captures well in the article) is how much of a boogeyman Chavez is to the right wing in this country.
Whether or not what he's doing is going to be successful, our track record in the US of supporting muderous dictators in Central and South America doesn't exactly give us a position of great moral authority to be criticizing him from.
To the extent Rall's point is that Chavez's questionable use of skyrocketing oil revenues is no different in kind than the House of Saud's, yet look how differently the two parties are viewed by the American political establishment, then right on.
To the extent he's a fan of Chavez's repressive, corrupt version of faux-socialism, which compares unfavorably even to Castro's repressive regime (try speaking out against Chavez in Venezuela or Castro in Cuba and see where it gets you), then he's out of his mind. Or just extremely lazy.
Note to self: Ted Rall's sloppy articles provoke comments from at least half of the regular readership
Rall, unfortunately, whitewashes Venezuela's slide from a liberal, albeit not necessarily responsive democracy, to a dictatorship, as Chavez has rewritten the constitution, instituted laws that prevent the disparaging of the president (which, by all measures, will continue to be him for the forseeable future), stacked the supreme court by increasing the number of justices from 20 to 32 (of course with his supporters), added an "electoral council" as a fourth branch of government to further cement his power, and used the military to keep his power.
HIs raise to power is probably most similar to Peron in Argentina. While Many look to Peronismo as a wonderful system that's brought great joy and happiness to Argentina, as someone's who's seen and lived in the slums around Buenos Aires and talked to the people there, let me tell you - it's a lie. It's a failure. It did nothing but bankrupt the country, get the people used to entitlements, and destroy what little work ethic there previously was. Unemployment in many areas is in the 50-60% range, and lawlessness reigns.
Venezuela wasn't in great shape under the previous government, but using a system that's been a spectacular failure elsewhere is hardly the way to improve things.
Why does Rall like Chavez? Because they've both claimed that the invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11 is evidence Bush is worse than Al Qaeda and the Taliban and that Bush is worse than Hitler. The enemy of his enemy is his friend.
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