My Problem With Chavez

[ludwigb]

As I see it, there are many things to like about Chavez. I think he is right that oil money should benefit the poor. In general I support any government that is trying to educate the people and foster greater equality without trampling on individual liberty. His appeal to Latin American nationalism makes me uneasy, but it is hardly out of bounds and probably necessary to combat poverty. Overall, he seems relatively honest, although he seems excitable and has a tendency to overstate things. Frankly, I don't think Chavez is completely out of bounds when he calls Bush the world's greatest "terrorist", even if I don't think this is productive.

Still, I find his Anti-American rhetoric unsettling. I read somewhere that he once said he considers America the most tyrannical regime in history. If America is a tyranny, how does Chavez really feel about constitutional ism and the discourse of human rights? Will he, like the 20th century communist states, abolish certain civil liberties in order to consolidate power for the Left and foster more radical equality? Call me a silly reformist if you will, but I'm not happy about the thought of a coming clash and potentially a war between liberals/conservatives and socialists in Latin America. I don't see why it is desirable or necessary. Consequently I feel much better about reformist leaders like Lula than Chavez.

I am glad Chavez is capable of recognizing and celebrating patriotic Americans like Cindy Sheehan. But as a patriotic American who loves his country and is proud of its heritage, I'm not sure I can support Hugo Chavez. And if I (an unreconstructed liberal) feel this way, I think most of the country will be easily buy into anti-Chavez rhetoric.... In short, if we (liberal Democrats) don't publicly criticize Chavez's excesses, then we run the risk of being associated with a foreign leader who believes America is the greatest threat to world peace. We run the risk of being unfairly lumped (again) with discredited Marxist ideology.

We have to carefully think about the strategic implications of praising Hugo Chavez.

[Inland]

1. There's a shared enemies empathy

causing a lot of signing onto an unknown quantity, and it's unnecessary. Stick to backing the result of a democratic process in an independent country and energy independence, so Robertson doesnt' give god's blessing to the next war for oil.

[leftstreet]

2. When did the Democratic Party issue a statement praising Chavez?

I must have missed it.

:shrug:

[gratuitous]

3. So what makes you think . . .

As an unreconstructed liberal, what makes you think that the United States as currently run is not a tyrannical regime, or is not a threat to world peace (is there another country on the planet that has invaded two countries in the last five years)? And would you be willing to make that argument to the survivors of Kama Aido or Fallujah? You also seem exceedingly nervous about the possibility that Chavez will "abolish certain civil liberties" without further specifics. Surely the overrich oligarchs who have impoverished Venezuela in order to line their own pockets will squeal like stuck pigs when their self-bestowed "right" to plunder the country and exploit the populace is curtailed. Will they have a legitimate complaint when they cry out that they can no longer oppress as they once did?

When Oscar Romero fed the poor, folks in the United States praised him as a saint. When he asked why they were poor, folks called him a Communist, paving the way to his assassination while conducting mass.

[sendero]

6. It is hard to imagine..

... Chavez ever being worse for civil liberties than the right-wing dirtbags the US has supported in the past.

This is just nonsense, tarring someone for what they "might" do when we've actively supported those who "did".

[ludwigb]

11. I would make a distinction

I agree that US foriegn policy and the economic policies it props up are unfair and tyrannical. However the US itself is hardly a tyranny--the Bush Admin has no intention of seriously amending the constitution and there is I've seen very little evidence of real electoral fraud. Whether the invasions were justified or not, the nations we invaded were far greater tyrannies.

Why am I worried about Chavez and civil liberties? I believe that the "Enabling Act" of 2001 that granted Chavez near-dictorial power for one year, and proceeded the 2002 coup, was understandable given the economic conditions, but nevertheless way over the top. I'm uneasy that Chavez seems to have taken some punitive measures against individuals who signed the recall petitions--this reeks of class warfare, which is generally bad news for a liberal constitutional state. I don't like his praise of Castro and especially Che Guevera, who I see as promoters of a violent revolutionary socialist ideology.

Still, I don't think Chavez himself will curb civil liberties unless there is war or a crisis leading to another "Enabling Act".

[Warren Stupidity]

13. "the Bush Admin has no intention of seriously amending the constitution"

Why would they need to when they have pronounced that the executive, due to a fictional war time emergency, need not bother with the document?

"Whether the invasions were justified or not, the nations we invaded were far greater tyrannies."

So that somehow justifies killing Iraqis in large numbers? Do you seriously think that the tyranny we have imposed on Iraq is less brutal than the one we replaced?

"this reeks of class warfare, which is generally bad news for a liberal constitutional state" well I doubt you see the irony of that statement, so I'll spell it out for you. We have suffered about 25 years of relentless class warfare in this country by the kleptocracy against working families, and it has indeed wrecked our constitutional republic.

[katinmn]

30. The Bush Regime is putting America in a permanent state of war.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/02/03/national/w093401S60.DTL
The Pentagon Friday announced plans to significantly increase special operations forces, expand psychological warfare and develop a program to counter biological terrorism as part of a new broadbased military strategy for the 21st century.

The long-range strategy document, more than a year in the making, outlines broad plans to reshape the military into a more agile fighting force better able to fight terrorism, in what the document calls the Long War, while still preserving the ability to wage large conventional wars.


If that's not tyranny, what is?

[Warren Stupidity]

33. It is keeping us safe from the horrors...

... of venezuelan land reform. Obviously.

[Judi Lynn]

35. Why don't you provide some info. on this "Enabling Act" you're discussing?

I think you know your "take" on it should have a credible source.

Also, we need more than your hunch Hugo Chavez is seeking revenge upon recall petition signers. If this had ever happened it would have been trumpeted all over the world by the right-wing oligarchy opposition media in Venezuela, with no chance of concealment, not at all. NONE. In other words, it didn't happen, and you are hoping to catch DU'ers napping, or drunk who would believe you.

Hugo Chavez has NOT slammed Americans. He has every right to dislike the loathesome tactics employed by _{George W. Bush} and people working in Venezuela in his name, as well as his State Department employees, like Colin Powell, and Condoleeza Rice, Otto Reich, Roger Noriega, and his Defense Secretary.

What information do you have on Fidel Castro's fomenting violent actions against you? What we DO have is a horrendous record of continuous acts of violence sponsored by the CIA directly, or indirectly for many years, then uninterrupted violence against Cuba and Cubans by Miami Cuban right-wing "exiles" up to the present day, including armed invasions, as in the Bay of Pigs, and invasions by small groups bearing arms, shooting at hotels and patrons, or even going ashore, a murder trial testimony by a Cuban "exile" who admitted to having carried vials of biological warfare material into Cuba for the C.I.A., flyovers all over the island by the "Brothers to the Rescue," some of them flying former U.S. warplanes which they never repainted, and sending in bombers hired in Central America to do their dirty work who have testified to having been hired by men hired by the Cuban American National Foundation in Miami, a 45 year old crushing embargo which is condemned annually by almost all the countries in the U.N. General Assembly (excepting the Marshall Islands and Israel), a foiled attempt to bomb a filled auditorium in Panama where Fidel Castro would be speaking, the first ever flying airliner bombing, which killed 73 people, including the Cuban fencing team, and medical students from Guyana, etc., etc., etc.

The program always follows this form:

Needless to say, the U.S. method of mistreatment has been applied to other countries besides Cuba. Numerous potentially dissident regimes that have asked for friendly relations have been met with abuse and aggression from Washington: Vietnam, Chile (under Allende), Mozambique, Angola,
Cambodia, Nicaragua (under the Sandinistas), Panama (under Torrijo), Grenada (under the New Jewel Movement), Yugoslavia (under Milosevic), Haiti (under Aristide), Venezuela (under Chavez), and numerous others.
The U.S. modus operandi is:
* heap criticism on the targeted government for imprisoning the butchers, assassins, terrorists, and torturers of the previous U.S.-backed reactionary regime
* denounce the revolutionary or reformist government as "totalitarian" for failing to immediately institute Western-style, electoral politics
* launch ad hominem attacks upon the leader, labeling him or her as fanatical, brutal, repressive, genocidal, power hungry, or even mentally imbalanced
* denounce the country as a threat to regional peace and stability
* harass, destabilize, and impose economic sanctions to cripple its economy
* attack it with surrogate forces, trained, equipped, and financed by the U.S. and led by members of the former regime, or even with regular U.S. armed forces
(snip)

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Caribbean/US_Aggression_Cuba.html

[PATRICK]

12. This is seriously the only real answer to the current

"debate" about enabling Bush to murder Chavez and rape Venezuela or "tolerating" an honestly mandated servant of the people going left for the defense of his nation and his life. The mere identification of "US" with the fraudulent Bush regime I consider an insult to America in any shape or form and incredibly backward on DU. Naderites and tin foil hatters deserve vastly more respect.

This goes for the reservations and kneejerk anti-socialist hypocrisy by soft socialist Democrats coming form monied interests and anti-Democratic Venezuelan elites.

Boy, if you buy into swallowing any of the arguments corporate pirates and dictators make as legitimate by equating Hussein=Saddam=Chavez="Anybody with something worth stealing" you have to be dumber than the most avid Bush supporters.

Criticize the guy when we are NOT putting him and his people under the gun, whenever the happy day of our liberation in this glass house should arrive.

It's like arguing with Free Republic on issue points to have to defend Chavez, when the first target remains our own tin god who has no concern at all for any earthling's rights, laws, lives or property and has slaughtered innocent men, women, and children in the course of "US" crimes.

There already is an honest post asking for all comers to pose their anti-Chavez info and we get another whiner supporting putting an honest, populist progressive democratic nation in jeopardy- and for what? A lousy DC establishment cover for the oil lobby. And if you think the Lulas and others who are "behaving themselves" properly are going to survive under the radar allow me to express my sincere doubts.

As for Dumsfeld's latest smear it is in a long long line of the GOP and RW running like crazy from the fact that the century's ugliest epithet is one of their own and they are living up to him well. Since WWII EVERY lefty enemy has been branded as a Nazi by the Right, long before any RWer yelled foul with having the Nazi slur deservedly slung at them.

Moderator, this is as close to a flame post as I generally get. Sorry.

[Warren Stupidity]

14. Good post. nt.

[Fredda Weinberg]

4. Being kidnapped in a coup d'etat will do that to you

I don't remember Chavez being this hostile before. I agree the average person won't understand.

[lectrobyte]

5. Anti-American? They don't hate us for our freedom, they hate us

for invading countries and overthrowing governments. Especially in Central and South America.

Are we the greatest threat to world peace? I could make a case for it.

But realistically, what else can he do? His types of reforms are totally against everything that * and his base stand for. They will do everything to overthrow him, and have already tried once. Do you blame him?

[Taxloss]

7. Shhhh! You'll upset the 100%ers!

Remember, everyone* must be classified according to the DU Angel-Devil matrix! There is no middle ground! Criticise one of the patron saints and you're a Freeper troll!

[gordianot]

15. Truth

Never to be heard, Never to be understood,

[gordianot]

8. I am much more worried about the United States of America.

I live here pay taxes here and have citizenship. I do not approve of the current regime that occupies Washington D.C. and daily violations of our Constitution. Beware of hair triggers and lines drawn in the sand especially in our hemisphere. Guess I am not a global thinker. I am generally in the Progressive Liberal camp but I am not a pacifist. Mr. Chavez can say whatever and do what he wants in Venezuela, he is the concern of the Venezuelan people.

[Bridget Burke]

9. The people of Venezuela support Chavez.

He doesn't need your support. He's spoken out against Bush, but makes cheap gas available to Americans in need.

Please define "radical equality." Guess it's something that PATRIOTIC AMERICANS can't support.

As Liberals we must buy into the anti-Chavez rhetoric spouted by Pat Robertson & Donald Rumsfeld--per 2 seperate threads posted today?

The dichotomy in Latin American is not liberals/conservatives versus socialists.

[Warren Stupidity]

10. Lets clean our own house first.

"If America is a tyranny, how does Chavez really feel about constitutional ism and the discourse of human rights?"

I don't know what your point is with that sentence. We are a tyranny.

We are torturing and murdering prisoners held for years without charges or hope of release. We invaded and occupied a nation under fraudulent pretexts, killing tens of thousands of civilians and violating numerous treaties in the process. We have no respect for human rights, and have pronounced a legal theory that no persons other than american citizens are afforded even the limited protections still honored by our government. We have more or less abolished most of the rights enumerated individuals under our own Bill of Rights, and through the vehicle of the Patriot Act, have legislated enabling legislation that grants unprecedented power to the state over individuals. The state is secretly monitoring the communications of its citizens, and openly brags that it must do so. Our executive branch has announced that due to a phony emergency it considers itself above law and constitution. Our elections are rigged and our media is controlled. We are a tyranny.

So your first clause in your sentence can be reasonably evaluated as true. Chavez can reasonably believe that we are a tyranny. The second clause appears to have no connection to the first: "how does Chavez really feel about constitutionalism and the discourse of human rights?" Why would our being a tyranny have a direct effect on how Chavez perceives constitutionalism or 'the discourse on human rights'?

I suggest that we go about reforming our own government, take care of our planet wide problem of american tyranny and our own oligarchy issues, before we lambaste the fictional dictatorship of hugo chavez.

[Yollam]

16. If you look at the US from the outside, it has been tyrannical.

It has been at constant war with country over country since WWII. It has coddled dictators and looked the other way as they committed genocide (E. Timor over 30 years) it has used its power with the IMF, World Bank and UN to crush weaker economies, forcing them to sell off state industries, then forcing them to pay back their debt in dollars as their currencies shrivel away.

Do I agree with him that we are the worst? That's hard to say. We did a lot of good in the years right after WW2 but we quickly reverted to our bullying, imperialist ways.

One needn't be a far leftist to see the US as a bully running roughshod over the rest of the world. You just need to see things without the filter of US media, which inevitably characterizes our aggressions on weaker countries as "aid" of one kind or another.

[Jamison]

17. I don't think Chavez hates America as a whole.

In fact I think if he were to log on to DU and read what we are all about, he'd probably sympathize with our fight.

We all know he hates Bushco and all they stand for, and he also hates predatory corporations like Wal-Mart, who they are fighting to keep out of Venezuela. I don't think that he would have any reason to hate our people...well except for freepers and followers of Pat Robertson maybe.

[JohnnyCougar]

31. You are absolutely right.

Chavez has repeatedly stated that he is no enemy of the American people. He helped out after Hurricane Katrina, and Citgo was the only oil company to respond to the call for discounted heating oil this winter in the wake of record profits from oil companies. Chavez is selling heating oil at about a 40% discount to poor neighborhoods in New York, Boston, and other places. Chavez has repeatedly stated that his beef with America is solely with Bush and his regime.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

18. Our oligarchy against Venezuela's democracy.

We are a nation in the thrall of the capitalists who run it under the guise of "democracy". In reality, we have two wings of one capitalist/nationalist party that control the media by owning it. Our "representative" government is populated by politicians who cannot get elected without the aid of the wealthy and powerful which requires that they return the favors of "campaign contributions" made by those same wealthy and powerful people and organizations.

Hugo Chavez was elected by the people of Venezuela to end the plundering of their country by our corporations and bring real democracy and equality to them.

Conversely, George W. Bush was elected by the people of the United States to protect our "vital national interests" which translates to protecting our corporate interests abroad from those who rebel against colonialism under the guise of "globalism".

You're right about one thing, however, most Americans will buy into anti-Chavez rhetoric under the usual rubric of patriotitic flag waving and fear of those challenge our right to have them as client states that we can prey on.

[donheld]

19. A little study will prove out what Hugo says about America

being a tyranny. It's hard for most Americans to see but it's true.

[RethugAssKicker]

20. We must stand for whats right... and Chavez is RIGHT!

We certainly are a tyranny? As has been stated in previous replies, Chavez has an absolutely good reason to feel the way he does.

He has been the victim of a US coupe, and is targeted for assasination by US powers. He is helping his people by grabbing a little more of the oil companies profits. Whats wrong with that?... and on top of it all ... he is helping the poor of this country by discounting his oil to them...

Our oil companies have made record profits last year... Exxon alone made 36 BILLION!... Have they offered ANYONE any discounts/rebates?..especially since much of that profit was obtained thru windfall profits (i.e. price gouging).

On top of this, you must understand the total tyranny the US has perpetrated against South American countries... with the assasination of Roldos and Torrijos...etc..

Are you aware of our policies towards Latin America for the last 50 years!

[FlemingsGhost]

21. Isn't it wiser to comment on what Chavez has actually done,

instead of engaging in speculative hand-wringing?

Your "problem" is solved.

:eyes:

[radio4progressives]

22. My Problem with this post.

It completey ignores that Chavez is speaking as someone who has not only been threatened by our Government, he was indeed a victim of TWO CIA attempted Coups, both having failed. And numerous threats from our Government. Acts of Agression, and the threat of agression perpetrated against his legitimate soverignty, is something legimate to OPPOSE.

His Anti-Bush Regime Rhetoric is completely JUSTIFIED.

He is NOT anti-American people.

How about focusing your concerns on Human Rights against one of the worse offenders? How about focusing your concerns on the most illigimate despot holding office as the leader of the free world, and in true Orwellian fashion turned our democracy, our constitutionally protected on it's head?

[donheld]

23. Right! If he was anti-american people he wouldn't

be trying to help the poor get cheaper heat/oil/etc.

[leesa]

24. You need to learn more about how the United States has treated other

countries around the world. I recommend an easy starting point, 'Confessions of an Economic Hitman', which will give you more recent information but realize this has been going on since the days of the Robber Barons and before. Read more Howard Zinn and Chomsky to get a bit more balance in your historical perspective...sounds like you have watched too many Hollywood movies about the glory of America.

[donheld]

25. Read this.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x311462

[ronnie624]

26. Yes. That is a good source of information.

Perhaps the OP can avail himself of it, along with certain other posters on this thread.

[donheld]

27. Welcome to DU Ronnie

:hi:

[katinmn]

28. I would trade Junior for Chavez as my leader any day.

I may do that yet.

[mdmc]

29. My problem with Chavez

he is not my President!

[Cleita]

32. Having lived in South America, I was able to

listen to what a lot of the people thought of America and Americans there and Chavez's views are pretty mainstream in the other America. Since he comes from a working class background, his views are also very socialistic and communist, like most working class South American people's are.

Remember American companies were down there exploiting the natural resources of these South American nations, reaping all the profits and giving none back to the people including the company my father worked for in Chile. The nationals resented this very much as there was much poverty.

In my father's company, in Chile, it was the copper that they were exploiting. The Chileans finally got the Americans to turn over a good portion of the profits, but unfortunately with the corrupt upper class politicians lining their pockets with it, none trickled down to the people. Also, they took the money out of the country putting it into Swiss banks, so the wealth of the nation was not being reinvested back into the country's economy.

This is why Salvadore Allende, a communist, was elected President. The people were fed up with the politicians from the more moderate parties, who didn't want to rock the boat and let the Americans and others keep exploiting the nation's natural resources. I found Allende to be a very honorable man but our country just couldn't abide it, staged a coup, murdered Allende and installed their own brutal dictator Augusto Pinochet.

This was exactly what they tried to do to Chavez, a legally elected President, by staging a recall coup, but Chavez out-foxed them and now he will be able to do for his country what no other politician in South America has been able to do, except Castro in the Carribbean. You may not like the politicians who are shaking off their North American overlords, but IMHO it's about time.

[Lars39]

34. List of countries the US has bombed:

http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:QYHfAe7L738J:www.peacefulresistance.com/article.php%3Fstory%3D20041103221124514+list+of+countries+us+has+bombed+since+WWII&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=4&client=firefox-a

China 1945-46
Korea 1950-53
China 1950-53
Guatemala 1954
Indonesia 1958
Cuba 1959-60
Guatemala 1960
Belgian Congo 1964
Guatemala 1964

Dominican Republic 1965-66
Peru 1965
Laos 1964-73
Vietnam 1961-73
Cambodia 1969-70
Guatemala 1967-69
Lebanon 1982-84
Grenada 1983-84
Libya 1986
El Salvador 1981-92
Nicaragua 1981-90
Libya 1986
Iran 1987-88
Libya 1989
Panama 1989-90
Iraq 1991-200-til god knows when
Kuwait 1991
Somalia 1992-94
Croatia 1994 (of Serbs at Krajina)
Bosnia 1995
Iran 1998 (airliner)
Sudan 1998
Afghanistan 1998
Yugoslavia 1999
Afghanistan 2001-02

[jeannicot]

36. Does he eat meat?

If so I absolutely cannot support him.


:sarcasm:

[natrat]

37. not many better heads of state out there