A Weblog of Centrist Voices in American Politics
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A Weblog of Centrist Voices in American Politics | |
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April 12, 2007Chavez, Caudillo de VenezuelaA Crooked Timber post reminds me that I wanted to do a Chavez post. I feel he's a dictator. The post asks,
This Chavez-hater hates Chavez because I agree that the Venezuelan people should choose who run them, and don't think they're in the loop in Venezuela. It seems to me that it's hard for the people to stay in good charge when their constitution is twisted into pretzels. It seems to me that it's hard for the people to stay in charge when reporters writing articles Chavez doesn't like are hurt, and opposition TV stations shut down. It's hard for the people to stay in charge when opposition leaders and voters are intimidated. Like in most of the US, the Venezuelan voting system is an unverifiable digital voting system. There is no possibility of tracking fraud in that kind of system. We have no idea how accurate the count was since that was adopted in 2004, just in time for a referendum on his rule. Very handy for caudillos. Not so handy for the people, either here or in Venezuela, sigh. To be fair, There is some evidence that Chavez has some real popularity at the moment. But there's little fair about his rule. And one wonders what the figures would be like if the press could speak freely and Chavez' political opponent had access to the TV stations Chavez shut down. Posted by Jon Kay at April 12, 2007 12:03 AMComments
But...but...Jimmy Carter said it was all clean and above-board! He sez Hugo's a Really Nice Guy! Sorry, I couldn't resist. I agree with you entirely. As a Venezeulan journalist wrote in 2004: "In the five years since Chavez has occupied the presidency, he has seized the courts, the Parliament, the armed forces and almost all the regional governments. He still has the communications media and the labor unions to go, but that will be taken care of." As indeed it has been. Posted by: Tully at April 12, 2007 08:49 AMRight. And if there's any consolation, it's the sort that only folks from a distance can take: Chavez seems determined to keep taking more and more rope until he has enough to hang himself. [Unless of course you're (not you John, the generic you) the sort who really believes that Chavez is a new wave leftist dictator who's going to get it right this time and really look out for the people and create a worker system that can actually outperform self-motivated capitalists. Anyone who believes that is entitled to their opinion and I'm not interested in arguing it. I'm confident time will tell...] He's going to destroy their economy sooner or later, and when he does, folks will wake up and notice all that useful democratic stuff they've lost. You know what it may take for genuine democracy to really establish sustainable roots in a given country? The establishment within that country of a sort of institutional memory...its OWN history. Its own political trials and tribulations and subsequent lessons. For whatever reason, it's a big part of human nature that folks just learn much better from their OWN mis-steps. This is something I started to notice as what I view as a super-truth about people...that there are some things you can teach people, but many of the most important things folks just have to learn for themselves, because they have to connect to it not just intellectually, but emotionally. I don't have any good date to support the following, but I'm driven to hypothesize that perhaps its much harder to reform a political system and establish a democracy in this modern era. Maybe the US was lucky to have started down this path in a time where communication was slow and limited and education haphazard and economies largely isolated (comparatively speaking). Did the US have the advantage of getting fat by picking the low hanging fruit, by being among the first? Posted by: bk at April 12, 2007 09:18 AMI'm wondering if the problems India faces have any similarity to the ones confronting South American nations. American and Europe have quite different paths to Democracy and economic reform. Posted by: Maxtrue at April 12, 2007 09:29 AMA moment of silence---- Kurt Vonnegut Jr (1922 - 2007) passed away today. Kudos for the great stories and insight..... Posted by: Maxtrue at April 12, 2007 09:51 AM |
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